I'm looking at the Comm Relay (3), not yet released. It looks like it is garbage. This should be a 1-2 point upgrade easily. Consistently the designers overcost defensive abilities (with the notable exception of C3PO) forgetting that offense is much more important than defense because you can always choose a target.

I'm looking at the Comm Relay (3), not yet released. It looks like it is garbage. This should be a 1-2 point upgrade easily. Consistently the designers overcost defensive abilities (with the notable exception of C3PO) forgetting that offense is much more important than defense because you can always choose a target.

I came here expecting to see someone talking about Rhymer.

I'm not sure that Comm Relay is overpriced. Against everything but TLTs it essentially a refillable shield upgrade.

Looks worth on Red Ace.

Turn 1 hard right, evade. hold on to that evade until combat. seems good for 3 points. thats a hull upgrade. and thats what an evade will save you.

Yeah Rhymer is insanely overcosted. Since they are not willing to patch his card, they should make a missile or torpedo that's unique and equipped only by Rhymer only that costs 0.

X-Wing is designed so defensive abilities always cost more. That said, being able to keep an evade token is really pretty powerful. It's effectively giving you a free action next turn, and such 3 point is hardly unreasonable.

I can also assure you they do a ton of playtesting of every upgrade out there.

3 points seems to be the standard cost for anything that grants the equivalent of an action or allows an action to carry over to the next turn. They might have been able to get away with 2 points, but it would have been a really good upgrade for that price. At a single point it becomes auto-include for any ship with a tech slot and the ability to get an evade token.

I came here expecting to see someone talking about Rhymer.

I came here expecting Flight Instructor.

Comms relay pairs with Juke. That's why it costs as much as it does.

Any cheaper and that combo is broken

It's a good thing that card has been out a while and we know all the combos based on it, to really understand it's value.

Oh wait...

Defense always costs more than offense because they want games to actually finish.

As others have noted, this is basically a refillable shield upgrade. At 18 points, the cheapest TIE/fo effectively becomes a naked Tempest against most attacks (exceptions apply for Carnor Jax, Autoblasters, Ten Numb crits, and Homing Missiles), with the ability to regen one point of shielding.

Comm relay is like a shield upgrade that refills. Like a situation-specific r2-d2 that you can put on a tie ace. 3 points is definitely not over.

It is an amazing upgrade. You will have to build lists with it in mind.

Defense always costs more than offense because they want games to actually finish.

As others have noted, this is basically a refillable shield upgrade. At 18 points, the cheapest TIE/fo effectively becomes a naked Tempest against most attacks (exceptions apply for Carnor Jax, Autoblasters, Ten Numb crits, and Homing Missiles), with the ability to regen one point of shielding.

A T-70 with Integrated Astromech, Comms Relay (and a 1 point Astromech) effectively has 8 health if you've got Jan Ors crew somewhere nearby, as long as Jan stays alive one of those points can regen. That's 28 points for the cheapest T-70.

Flight instructor

In defense of the Flight Instructor.. what did you expect... there's a reason its only in the Lambda Expansion.

The game is designed so that Offense > Defense. That being said, I am not 100% sure this is a case of offense being greater than defense.

In a swarm situation, its effectively +1 HP for each ship in your squad (with the possibility of getting it to mitigate even more). Which is the same cost as a hull upgrade.

If I drop it on Epsilon Pilots, thats 5 ships with +1 hull, with 15 points left over. With those 15 points I could do some pilot skill bids, some elites, hull upgrade all around or just an additional Eplison without the card.

Its also useful for when you just want to make your TIE/FO ace more survivable than putting a hull upgrade on it and have 3 points. Heck for six points you end up with a ship with a 3 agility and (slightly better than) 5 hull and 1 shield.

Han Solo crew seems a bit pricey for what he does; he's basically just insurance for when a Focus is superior to a Target Lock and you don't have a Focus, which is nice but doesn't seem 2 points and a crew slot nice to me.

EDIT: Looking at Flight Instructor, it seems decent against TLTs since they're generally 2 skill and he rerolls for each shot. I haven't played with him though, so maybe I've overrating his capabilities. And at 4 points he is very pricey.

To clarify I am not saying a swarm of these is the most effective use of this card, as opposed to say a 6th Epsilon Pilot. What I am saying is that numerically its inline with other upgrades that provide similar benefits.

Troll post has successfully fed.

It's not like FFG is probably working on Wave 10 right now, and knowing what all the cards coming are. Or something.

Troll goes NOM NOM NOM!

Han Solo crew seems a bit pricey for what he does; he's basically just insurance for when a Focus is superior to a Target Lock and you don't have a Focus, which is nice but doesn't seem 2 points and a crew slot nice to me.

He is usually not worth it, but put him on a CR-90 and he shines. Suddenly turbolaser shots are just as accurate as shots from your small ships!

In a swarm situation, its effectively +1 HP for each ship in your squad (with the possibility of getting it to mitigate even more). Which is the same cost as a hull upgrade.

It also gets around the biggest disadvantage that taking an Evade action instead of a Focus action has. If your opponent only shoots at 1 of 5 ships, 4 ship had wasted actions. With Comm Relay, assuming that there is no engagement on turn one the entire swarm has Focus+Evade for the first turn of shooting. The Focus+Evade will really cut down on the numbers of ships lost in the first exchange, which is critical for a swarm.

Han Solo crew seems a bit pricey for what he does; he's basically just insurance for when a Focus is superior to a Target Lock and you don't have a Focus, which is nice but doesn't seem 2 points and a crew slot nice to me.

He is usually not worth it, but put him on a CR-90 and he shines. Suddenly turbolaser shots are just as accurate as shots from your small ships!

As someone who's never played with huge ships, I never thought about that.

Feels like FFG tries to make every upgrade have some sort of niche. Daredevil on Tycho Celchu for example. It's not like Magic the Gathering where they intentionally print bad cards.

Han Solo crew seems a bit pricey for what he does; he's basically just insurance for when a Focus is superior to a Target Lock and you don't have a Focus, which is nice but doesn't seem 2 points and a crew slot nice to me.

EDIT: Looking at Flight Instructor, it seems decent against TLTs since they're generally 2 skill and he rerolls for each shot. I haven't played with him though, so maybe I've overrating his capabilities. And at 4 points he is very pricey.

I expect that Han crew might see some more play when a Rebel ship (other than the B-Wing) that has both a crew slot and a system slot gets released. The four point combo of Han and FCS will be strong.

About com's relay..... Red ace (ps6 T70) + coms relay + R2-D2. Wouldn't it be wrong to make that cheaper?