It is absurd to make a thread saying that Tractor Beam isn't that good, when we don't even know what Tractor Beam does.

Doesn't the Mist Hunter have a rule card about double cannons? Firing off two tractor beams maybe?

The card says "Dual Upgrade" or "Dual Upgrades." I don't think it mentions anything about cannons.

The only cannon thing with the Mist Hunter is, as mentioned above, that it doesn't have a cannon. At most, you can only have one G-1A with a cannon and that cannon can only be a Tractor Beam because that's what the unique title does.

Tractor Beam seems to be a pretty hard counter for Fat Han, from the looks of it.

Well, sort of. C3PO only matters once anyway, so he's going to tell you the odds of hitting with the initial Tractor Beam shot. I don't see how it's any different from using any other attack, really.

Tractor Beam actually has much greater impact on Autothrusters users. If VI Vessery can hit Poe with the tractor before Chiraneau shoots, the X-Wing could be in big trouble.

It is absurd to make a thread saying that Tractor Beam isn't that good, when we don't even know what Tractor Beam does.

Except that...we do? You can read the card in the Imperial Veterans preview. It's still silly to decide now that it's bad/good, though.

It is absurd to make a thread saying that Tractor Beam isn't that good, when we don't even know what Tractor Beam does.

Except that...we do? You can read the card in the Imperial Veterans preview. It's still silly to decide now that it's bad/good, though.

But we can't actually read the entire card. It's entirely possible that that the remainder of the card says something like "Ships with a tractor beam token cannot modify Defense rolls". That would take the tractor beam from "it's ok, I could probably find a use for it" to "oh wow".

The thing that I did notice is that they called things out by phases like they did with ion tokens. This means that Corran gets no benefit from the tokens on a target when using his double-tap.

It is absurd to make a thread saying that Tractor Beam isn't that good, when we don't even know what Tractor Beam does.

Except that...we do? You can read the card in the Imperial Veterans preview. It's still silly to decide now that it's bad/good, though.

But we can't actually read the entire card. It's entirely possible that that the remainder of the card says something like "Ships with a tractor beam token cannot modify Defense rolls". That would take the tractor beam from "it's ok, I could probably find a use for it" to "oh wow".

The thing that I did notice is that they called things out by phases like they did with ion tokens. This means that Corran gets no benefit from the tokens on a target when using his double-tap.

If you had initiative, wouldn't your "at the start of the end phase" ability resolve before your opponent's "remove tokens?"

It is absurd to make a thread saying that Tractor Beam isn't that good, when we don't even know what Tractor Beam does.

Except that...we do? You can read the card in the Imperial Veterans preview. It's still silly to decide now that it's bad/good, though.

But we can't actually read the entire card. It's entirely possible that that the remainder of the card says something like "Ships with a tractor beam token cannot modify Defense rolls". That would take the tractor beam from "it's ok, I could probably find a use for it" to "oh wow".

The thing that I did notice is that they called things out by phases like they did with ion tokens. This means that Corran gets no benefit from the tokens on a target when using his double-tap.

If you had initiative, wouldn't your "at the start of the end phase" ability resolve before your opponent's "remove tokens?"

Initiative shouldn't have anything to do with it as long as the cleanup of tractor beam tokens happens as part of the normal token cleanup process. Corran's double-tap always comes before anyone cleans up tokens.

Regardless of the Defender still having a tractor token or not, Corran's double-tap doesn't get any benefit from the tractor beam token* because the token only reduces agility during the Combat phase.

*Assuming that the bottom half of the card doesn't change anything.

It's pretty easy to calculate: a single evade dice is worth 1/3 of a point of damage mitigation. There are, of course, outliers - it can be worth more with focus tokens or re-rolls, and it could be worth less if the attack does not score enough hits for the extra dice to make a difference. But let's assume 1/3rd point of damage mitigation per attack.

So the profit of a tractor beam is -1/3 point of damage mitigation per each attack made that round after the tractor beam hits.

The opportunity cost of a tractor beam is: one point of damage that would have been caused by the ion cannon or flechette cannon, plus the stress/ion token - this would be the profit of an alternate weapon "hit". The points difference between tractor and flechette I think is marginal.

In other words, for the tractor beam to pay for itself, you'd need to make AT LEAST 3 attacks after a successful tractor beam attack, and that just compensates for the damage, not for the stress/ion effect.

The most number of attacks you could have is: Delta + title + tractor beam and engine mk 2 (32), 4 x academy pilot (48), howlrunner w/decoy (20). This means you'd be making 6 attacks after the tractor beam attack, so can potentially gain 2 points of damage through a successful tractor hit. And that's in optimal conditions, with all your guys shooting up one target and assuming the target doesn't die from all these shots, etc.

I think I'd prefer 1 damage+stress or 1 damage+ion every time over an infrequent opportunity to gain 2 damage.

It's pretty easy to calculate: a single evade dice is worth 1/3 of a point of damage mitigation. There are, of course, outliers - it can be worth more with focus tokens or re-rolls, and it could be worth less if the attack does not score enough hits for the extra dice to make a difference. But let's assume 1/3rd point of damage mitigation per attack.

So the profit of a tractor beam is -1/3 point of damage mitigation per each attack made that round after the tractor beam hits.

The opportunity cost of a tractor beam is: one point of damage that would have been caused by the ion cannon or flechette cannon, plus the stress/ion token - this would be the profit of an alternate weapon "hit". The points difference between tractor and flechette I think is marginal.

In other words, for the tractor beam to pay for itself, you'd need to make AT LEAST 3 attacks after a successful tractor beam attack, and that just compensates for the damage, not for the stress/ion effect.

The most number of attacks you could have is: Delta + title + tractor beam and engine mk 2 (32), 4 x academy pilot (48), howlrunner w/decoy (20). This means you'd be making 6 attacks after the tractor beam attack, so can potentially gain 2 points of damage through a successful tractor hit. And that's in optimal conditions, with all your guys shooting up one target and assuming the target doesn't die from all these shots, etc.

I think I'd prefer 1 damage+stress or 1 damage+ion every time over an infrequent opportunity to gain 2 damage.

Say the person rolls their lost defense dice each time, just to see what they would have rolled, had they gotten the chance, and they rolled a natural evade each time. That means you would have gained 6 damage thanks to the token, not two. And I'd gladly take that over 1 damage+stress/ion.

Also, think of this list:

Delta - 30

Tractor Beam - 1

Twin Ion Engine - 1

TIE/D - 0

Delta - 30

Ion Cannon - 3

Twin Ion Engine - 1

TIE/D - 0

Delta - 30

Ion Cannon - 3

Twin Ion Engine - 1

TIE/D - 0

Now that Tractor Beam is taking away one defense dice from the following five shots, for a total of five defense dice from the defender, and making it much easier to get your Ion effects through. Yesterday, I tried this list against 4 Y's with TLT, and it was laughably easy to destroy a Y-Wing a round when they had no defense dice, and the follow-up shots could do up to 11 damage (9 from Primaries at range 2-3+2 from Ion). I'd say this squad is a pretty solid counter to lists that take several B or Y-Wings, because even if that thing survives the follow up attacks after the Tractor Beam, it still becomes super predictable when ionized, allowing the more maneuverable Defenders to move into blind spots and finish it off at their leisure.