Don't get me wrong. I have a healthy respect for tractor beams on my opponent. But I think it's easy to play smart enough to overcome the issue.

That and right now it's only in the ISD pack (I could be wrong...I'm a little poped up on cold meds). I don't think too many smart fellas are going to run more than 2 and unless you've got deep pockets, probably won't buy more than that anyways.

Tractor Beams are good and I will keep saying so they just don't provide a threat that worries me. That's the important part. I am not looking at the upgrade but more at the ship it is on.

Wooooooo! Man, you guys have me convinced. I'm just gonna forfeit my game if I face Tractor Beams. Too stronk for me. Hopefully we get an article from FFG that illustrates how to defeat such a beast of an upgrade. Gonna take up playing Hello Kitty Island Adventures until then, cuz, like, what's the point. Amirite? /sarcasm off. This type of ish is settled on the table...preferably served with healthy portions of crow.

He said, attempting to ridicule an argument that nobody made.

Wooooooo! Man, you guys have me convinced. I'm just gonna forfeit my game if I face Tractor Beams. Too stronk for me. Hopefully we get an article from FFG that illustrates how to defeat such a beast of an upgrade. Gonna take up playing Hello Kitty Island Adventures until then, cuz, like, what's the point. Amirite? /sarcasm off. This type of ish is settled on the table...preferably served with healthy portions of crow.

He said, attempting to ridicule an argument that nobody made.

On that note, I like my crow drowned in Sriracha and duck sauce...blackened without rubbery fat. Now I just gotta wait for someone to serve me up some Wave 2 Tractah Beams!!!

Wooooooo! Man, you guys have me convinced. I'm just gonna forfeit my game if I face Tractor Beams. Too stronk for me. Hopefully we get an article from FFG that illustrates how to defeat such a beast of an upgrade. Gonna take up playing Hello Kitty Island Adventures until then, cuz, like, what's the point. Amirite? /sarcasm off. This type of ish is settled on the table...preferably served with healthy portions of crow.

He said, attempting to ridicule an argument that nobody made.

That way, nobody's offended! I'm sure someone will make it a point TO be offended though.

On that note, I like my crow drowned in Sriracha and duck sauce...blackened without rubbery fat. Now I just gotta wait for someone to serve me up some Wave 2 Tractah Beams!!!

I think Raymus is worth the investment though. I get that having a stack of Navigate commands is no big deal, necessarily, but if your opponent has tractor beams, you have to take a token (if you don't want to slow down), so you'll loose the dial command, Raymus will give you both, seems worth the cost to me.

I think the 'I've spent 6 points to mess with your plans' is a strong one, you loose that banked token from the first turn, and you miss out on your squadron commands....... Then your conga line of AFII have to have navigates too, because disruption of that will cause a serious pile up, so you loose out on their other commands too, yup - if I see tractors on the other side of the table, I'm conceding right there!!

I think Raymus is worth the investment though. I get that having a stack of Navigate commands is no big deal, necessarily, but if your opponent has tractor beams, you have to take a token (if you don't want to slow down), so you'll loose the dial command, Raymus will give you both, seems worth the cost to me.

I think the 'I've spent 6 points to mess with your plans' is a strong one, you loose that banked token from the first turn, and you miss out on your squadron commands....... Then your conga line of AFII have to have navigates too, because disruption of that will cause a serious pile up, so you loose out on their other commands too, yup - if I see tractors on the other side of the table, I'm conceding right there!!

"Can I give a big kudos to you post cast guys, It's a great listen to also as a person that has run sound for concerts and live events the mixing of this show is good. Thanks for the IFF keep making more."

Thank you! That is how I learned to mix as well.

The context of your typing seems very aggressive.

You are looking at it from that aspect and as I have stated, you are right. However coming from perspective of how I would counter something like that, I would not let it phase me.

Oh no! I have to stack Nav commands for a few turns, that suck's. Oh well that's fine I can survive those attacks and use that to my advantage to advance my plans.

Predictable strategies can be reversed with patience.

You brought up the MC30 which is silly. My entire context is on the list I posted. Each ship has their own needs. The MC30 is speed and movement so Nav commands were likely to be there anyway. The Assault Frigate loves it's speed and likes nav commands, the MC80 enjoys Nav commands as well so me stacking them are I lyrics a minor hindrance.

You also seem to be ignoring the face that the ship that wants to use its tractor beams have to get into range. The VSD will take time to do that for the Assault Frigates and smaller while the ISD will become a HUGE target.

Go test the long range attacks of the posted list and then 1 turn later the Medium range. That ISD dies in 2 rounds

Are you really positing that a tactic is nonviable, simply because you posted a list custom tailored to be able to defeat that tactic? Think about the lists that DON"T counter it. Think about all the lists that exist right now that would be ripped to shreds by 2 tractor beams.

When you consider an upgrades usefulness against your potential opponents, you have to think about 3 types of lists: Lists that don't care about it, lists that are destroyed by it, and lists that fall somewhere in the middle. Sure your list doesnt care much if you're sailing around at S1, but if you lost point bid and he makes you pick from his objectives, he could pick one that makes you try to race across the board. And just assuming I'm going to drive my ISD into the teeth of your formation is just silly. Anyone who doesn't attempt to flank and get across your much weaker bow to stove in your conga line deserves 18 dice to the face. There's too many hypotheticals. But at the very least, you just now designed a list specifically to counter Tractor Beams. That's already a point in its favor. Just like people have to take the Demolisher threat into consideration while designing lists.

On the IFF podcast before this one, you guys were talking about the 3 Guppy list. One of the guys was talking about how when he gets into the heat of things, he spams engineering commands on his hurt Guppy, and how thankful he was on T5 when Garm fed him all those tokens. It allowed him to bail out the critical Guppy and get it out of firing range. That same list with Tractors would have ruined his conga line, and even if he spammed Nav commands, he'd then not be using CF or Eng commands to boost his firepower and repair his shields and hull.

Tractor beams isn't autowin, and no one has suggested so. That's hyperbole on your part and disingenuous to the actual discussion on these boards.

You should read my later replies.

As for aa custom tailored list. I never even considered Tractor Beams when I built my list so there was no "custom tailoring" about it. That was just my list to maximize on a list able to survive.

As for the ISD getting behind. Good luck with that. It is much easier said than done. At speed 2 with Nav commands the 67.5 degree turn will always keep that side arc relevant.

Spamming Engineering tokens with AFMK2s backed my Advanced Projectirs while skirting out of arcs is one of the more popular and successful tactics in Wave 1. Removing the ability to both limit incoming fire (by being at speed) and earn back 2-3 Shields a turn will absolutely impact the preferred approach of the standout Wave 1 Rebel option. If AFMK2s are forced to choose between maintaining manuverability and bringing the shields up thier survivability is going to take a large hit. That is pretty much what will be happening if you do have to deal with multiple Tractor Beams, you lose out on your ability to be both elusive and heal at the same time.

Given the AFMK2s stand to be a popular Ackbar deploy Tractor Beams will have the ability to be impactful. That they don't impact MC80s as much isn't a real knock on them as they do impact every other Rebel ship and are not overly expensive and are an automatic effect.

They also will have impact vs. Imperial lists as a tool to direct tempo plays from non-Yularen Gladiators.

Spamming Engineering tokens with AFMK2s backed my Advanced Projectirs while skirting out of arcs is one of the more popular and successful tactics in Wave 1. Removing the ability to both limit incoming fire (by being at speed) and earn back 2-3 Shields a turn will absolutely impact the preferred approach of the standout Wave 1 Rebel option. If AFMK2s are forced to choose between maintaining manuverability and bringing the shields up thier survivability is going to take a large hit. That is pretty much what will be happening if you do have to deal with multiple Tractor Beams, you lose out on your ability to be both elusive and heal at the same time.

Given the AFMK2s stand to be a popular Ackbar deploy Tractor Beams will have the ability to be impactful. That they don't impact MC80s as much isn't a real knock on them as they do impact every other Rebel ship and are not overly expensive and are an automatic effect.

They also will have impact vs. Imperial lists as a tool to direct tempo plays from non-Yularen Gladiators.

And if you hit a Yularen-Glad with 2 Tractors he's all kinds of in trouble.

I really agreed with the comment that Major Rhymer is a bit annoying in that he is such an obvious automatic selection to take to make imperial bombers better. You shouldn't have to rely on named characters so blatantly.

On the other hand, I disagree about the Tie Bomber! To me, its a perfect "bomb truck" - fast, tough and with a black bomber dice. It does everything it needs to and doesn't pay for anything it doesn't need (Y wing is very similar in this regard). Of course, this is predicated on the assumption that all squadrons are costed appropriately. I'm still a squadron fan, but can't help thinking that they are all about 2 points over priced. But the relativity is about right.

I was almost taught how devistating tie fighters firing at my ships from medium range via rhymer was... Except my opponent seemed to be using a D20 instead of a D8, and only one side was a hit. So dodged a bullet there.

I really agreed with the comment that Major Rhymer is a bit annoying in that he is such an obvious automatic selection to take to make imperial bombers better. You shouldn't have to rely on named characters so blatantly.

On the other hand, I disagree about the Tie Bomber! To me, its a perfect "bomb truck" - fast, tough and with a black bomber dice. It does everything it needs to and doesn't pay for anything it doesn't need (Y wing is very similar in this regard). Of course, this is predicated on the assumption that all squadrons are costed appropriately. I'm still a squadron fan, but can't help thinking that they are all about 2 points over priced. But the relativity is about right.

My exact thoughts as i listened to the podcast. It's not that the Bomber is bad, it isn't, its that Rhymer is SO GOOD. He's hands down the best point investment pilotwise, purely because his ability affects ship combat, and that's the entire point of the game.

I feel like a significant portion of the TIE Bomber hate came out of the comparison with the Y. In a vacuum maybe the dislike isn't so strong but when you match the two up you see a lot of benefit in the Y for only a small point increase.

you know I was thinking about what "Even Steven" was saying about Tie Fighters pouring out of an ISD...just playing around at work because i'm bored.

But i'm thinking it could actually be a viable strategy. Especially if people think no fighters is the current meta.

ISD (plus upgrades)

Raider (help tie down other fighters, and missiles if there are none)

Demolisher

and Howl runner plus 13 more Tie Fighters.

That is potentially 14 blue dice I could be chucking at ships.

Especially against the slow MC80

Even if its not a good strategy it sounds like it will be fun to try.

I'm with you KAGE, although for better or worse I think you drop two TIE Fighters for one Rhymer to make all the Fighters way better.

Not trying to say we shouldn't do it, because gamer-chat is great, but any cross-faction arguments stand on shaky ground at best. There's little reason to hate the TIE Bomber in comparison to the Y, since the imp player can't take a Y. I only bring it up because the basis of the argument is sometimes, "why bother with TIE Bombers when the Y-Wing is so much better at the same job". Telling someone they should just play rebs instead if they really want to use bomber-types is ... well it might have merit but it sort of dodges the initial question.

An excellent point, fellow crewman of the FSD!

I think I have 12 painted TIE stands now. So... that's happening soon.

Well. If you want to go full fluff... Depending on the timeline of the eu... Lol 4 fighters two bombers and interceptor. Ijs

I feel like a significant portion of the TIE Bomber hate came out of the comparison with the Y. In a vacuum maybe the dislike isn't so strong but when you match the two up you see a lot of benefit in the Y for only a small point increase.

Well you do have to take into consideration that except for the Interceptor vs Awing comparison, all of the Tie's are "weaker" than their counterparts. But once you look at some of the combos available, like Corrupter + Chiranaeu, and compare that TiE Bomber combo against anything you can cook up with Y's, it evens out.

Also, the last time i managed to get an actual game in i ran 2 VSD1's, with Motti i think, and EHB. Went for a dumb Fighter wing idea, and ran Howlrunner, 3 TF, Fel and a wingman, 1 TIE Advanced, and Rhymer. Wiped out my opponents meager fighter screen Turn 2, then spent the rest of the game lobbing 8 dice at anything that tried to get around the sides of my VSD's. It worked surprisingly well. Rhymer makes any kind of squadron list exponentialy better, since he helps mitigate the move or shoot problem in the squadron phase.

My most crushing victory involved a Rhymer+4 Bomber ball trundling up into the middle of the board, and just parking there as my opponent had to get around it to get at my VSD and Demolisher. T3 saw his Demolisher stripped of its shields and 2 damage put on, Turn 4 saw his other Glad take 5 damage to the rear arc, and Turns 5 and 6 saw his VSD go down to a barrage of Rhymer backed torps. None of this would have been possible if i hadn't been able to shot out to Medium range.

TIE bombers are more valuable to imperials than rebels because imperials lack more in the long range fire department, and bombers with their speed 4 black dice essentially mean, long range firepower. If your using them as short range attack craft, your doing it wrong, your ships can do short range better. You activate your VSD1 and do your long range dice attack combined with 3-4 bombers for a strong first pass shot. Then on the next turn you should be able to get some close range shots off with your VSD1, or regroup bombers and launch them again if they are trying to remain in standoff range.

so was just able to listen to the episode today and didn't realize that you guys already made the flip flop on the AFII joke in the episode.... No my joke seems redundant..... Anyways coming from the podcast world you guys do a great job and every episode should be that long! On the flip side coming from the podcast world I understand the time commitment.

Thanks Tir.

Raiders. Best thing to come out of Wave 2 hands down; I'm right until tomorrow when I'm wrong.

Thanks Tir.

Raiders. Best thing to come out of Wave 2 hands down; I'm right until tomorrow when I'm wrong.

yeah as a rebel player they make me consider the imperials

Wrong. Best thing to come out of Wave two is the CR90 or maybe the VSD's.