Tractor Beam (1)

Attack: Attack 1 ship. If this attack hits, the defender receives 1 tractor beam token. Then cancel all dice results. Range 1-3 Attack value 3.

Flechette Cannon (2)

Attack: Attack 1 Ship. If this attack hits, the defender suffers 1 damage and, if the defender is not stressed, it also received 1 stress token. Then cancel all dice results. Range 1-3 Attack value 3.

Ion Cannon (3)

Attack: Attack 1 ship. If this attack hits the target ship, the ship suffers 1 damage and receives 1 ion token. Then cancel all dice results. Range 1-3 Attack value 3.

NOTE: From what people have been able to decipher from the TIE Veterans posting, what the tractor beam token does is reduce the agility of the target by 1 until the end of the turn.

As of right now, these are the only cannons that work with the TIE/D title. The question is, which one is the best choice, and in what situation.

I will say up front, the best TIE Defender that this title works on is Colonel Vessery. The reason is that if his target has a Target Lock on him, Vessery will have the opportunity to earn, and spend, a target lock for each attack.

Tractor Beam.

This card is interesting. When coupled with a miniswarm, or a couple of other aces of equal or lower pilot skill, firing first with Vessery and hopefully applying the tractor token to make all future shots works well. Imagine having a 3 agility ship at 2 agility. Or a 1 agility ship at 0. Imagine cancelling the use of C-3P0. Imagine being able to make it so that the Y-Wing is unable to roll defense dice.

The catch is, when applied to Colonel Vessery, having his support ships in the squad able to take a target lock action at a lower pilot skill than Vessery so they can shoot AFTER he attempts to apply the token. For example, at 40 points you have have Vessery with a Stealth Device, Crack Shot, and the Tractor Beam. For 60 points you can have 4x Epsilon Pilots. Or a couple of Tempest Squadron Pilots and an Omega Squadron Pilot. Remove Crack Shot, add Veteran Instincts, and then add Juno and Maarek.

The point is, the Tractor Beam is useless in many builds, but with the right squad setup, being able to reduce the agility of your opponent for your remaining ships can be a game changer.

Flechette Cannon

If you only have two points and don't want to add a Tractor Beam, or your other ships have a higher pilot skill, this isn't a bad choice. Like the Ion Cannon it is able to deal 1 damage max. However, the stress token is applied ONLY if your opponent doesn't already have a stress token. That is the biggest weakness of the Flechette Cannon. You can either chose your target carefully to take advantage of that fact, or take a different cannon slot upgrade.

That being said, there is no need to have more than 1 TIE/D equipped with this cannon as the stress mechanic is wasted if you concentrate your fire on 1 target.

Ion Cannon

This is the current reigning king idea as far as cannons are concerned. Hit your opponent, deal that 1 damage, apply the Ion token, and know where your opponent will be next turn so you can repeat the process. Control, with a potential 4 damage (without factoring in crits) makes this a deadly choice.

However, there is a unique possibility. How about designing a squad that takes advantage of all three of these upgrade cards?

3x Delta Squadron Pilots

1 Tractor Beam

1 Flechette Cannon

1 Ion Cannon

3x Twin Ion Engine Mk. II

This presents a unique opportunity to be a total prick to your opponent. You fire the Tractor Beam ship first, hopefully reduce their agility, and then fire the other two ships. Having a ship stressed and then perform a white 1 forward keeps them in 1 location, and they are unable to perform any actions. However, the biggest drawback is the three very tempting targets at PS 1. A good enemy had a decent chance to kill one Defender before they can shoot......

Anyway, these are my thoughts on the TIE/D title and the cannons that work with it.

With not as many PTL aces around, Flechette isn't a bad option. The issue is that Ion works in all cases, except needs 2 hits for large ships. At least Flechette does a damage, too.

Tractor is good for everything, but will have a hard time against Soontir Fel. Not only does it lower it for your next attack, but it lowers the Agility for ALL of the rest of the attacks for the round. That means that even Tie Fighters would have a chance at hitting your target. Tractor is fantastic against someone like Poe, who gets a free Focus per defense. Poe may regenerate, but the fewer green dice means more hits which means harder to regen.

If you can use Outmaneuver with Tractor, then you are doing even better. Imagine hitting with the Tractor from Outmaneuver against Poe. He'll get ZERO green dice on your regular attack.

Ion Cannon does a point of damage and forces your target to go 1 forward next turn. You will know where it is and that will make it easier to target. Even your regular Tie Fighters will be able to get in R1 to get a lot of shots off at the target. Not bad at all.

I've been running 2 delta sigma with Ion's for a while now. So for me It will be ion's

I love putting one on a big ship, than watching it carefully avoid the edge because another will send it flying off. It forces the big ship into other maneuvers, and with two of them. I have even caused the ship to land on rocks and shoot it to pieces, now I can do it twice as fast!

Given it's small bases as far as the eye can see, ion always

If fat **** come back to spoil our game, flechette

Something to think about, Tractor Beam gets worse as the game goes on because there will be fewer ships to make use of its effect. Ion and Flechette get better as the game goes on because they are controlling a larger fraction of the the opponent's ships.

Something to think about, Tractor Beam gets worse as the game goes on because there will be fewer ships to make use of its effect. Ion and Flechette get better as the game goes on because they are controlling a larger fraction of the the opponent's ships.

While that IS true, remember no one swings for Fel when there are easier targets on the board... Flechette doesnt double stress, and ion doesnt take away his actions (assuming for whatever reason he's not stressed.)... okay thats a bad argument for ion... but ion has diminishing effect on large ships that they can 'plan' for.

Tractor shuts down Palp mobile survivability, Fat han Survivability, TLT Survivability... basically all the big ships you want to focus, granted the others help control them to make them easier to kill, but to shut down 3P0 or OGP's 1 Agi, or that Pesky 1 TLT Green... thats huge.

Given it's small bases as far as the eye can see, ion always

If fat **** come back to spoil our game, flechette

Nah, then you just take 2.

I look at it like this: With only two exceptions, what ever you are shooting at is going to be rolling green dice. Potentially reducing the number of green dice being rolled is always a good thing. I certainly see the advantages of all three options, but one clearly works in more situations than the others.

You can't stress anything with a starting hull value greater than 4, so that limits Flechett's value against big ships and things like Y wings and Bombers.

Large ships require two ion tokens to be affected, and if you are only taking one ion weapon you have again limited your option's utility.

Tractor beam does not do damage, and is a three dice attack, but it makes the intended target easier to hit in a very meaningful way. I reallly like the idea of Vessery getting his tractor shot modified by a free TL, reducing the target's agilty, and modifying his follow up shot with his primary, and then the rest of the squad pounding the hell out of the same target. All for one point. That's pretty great.

You can't stress anything with a starting hull value greater than 4, so that limits Flechett's value against big ships and things like Y wings and Bombers.

You're thinking of flechette torps, which only stress ships with 4 or less hull. Flechette cannons stress a ship if they aren't already stressed.

Something to think about, Tractor Beam gets worse as the game goes on because there will be fewer ships to make use of its effect. Ion and Flechette get better as the game goes on because they are controlling a larger fraction of the the opponent's ships.

With TIE/D it is basically a 1 point Outmaneuver with the EPT slot left open.

Thanks, AG, you are right. That said, I still like the tractor effect better than the FC. Dagonet makes a great point, only it's a one point outmaneuver for all of your ships that turn. They point that it gets worse as you have fewer targets seems kind of backwards to me. Only one ship to shoot? Easier to maximize your advantage, but that goes without saying, lol.

We'll see how it actually pans out, but I think it's going to be fun to use and effective.

Something to think about, Tractor Beam gets worse as the game goes on because there will be fewer ships to make use of its effect. Ion and Flechette get better as the game goes on because they are controlling a larger fraction of the the opponent's ships.

With TIE/D it is basically a 1 point Outmaneuver with the EPT slot left open.

Not really, because you could save 3 points by taking nothing by using the x7 title.

Something to think about, Tractor Beam gets worse as the game goes on because there will be fewer ships to make use of its effect. Ion and Flechette get better as the game goes on because they are controlling a larger fraction of the the opponent's ships.

With TIE/D it is basically a 1 point Outmaneuver with the EPT slot left open.

Not really, because you could save 3 points by taking nothing by using the x7 title.

You could, but then you'd be flying a different style of Defender.

This topic was about flying a TIE/D specifically. While the option of not flying that is available, that would be a whole different topic altogether.

I'm looking forward to using a few Tractor Beams on TIE/D's, but also to flying X7's with Juke.

It really depends on your list. I think we will see all three used effectively. Personally I would lean towards the ion because the control element is much more substantial. If you are running just a single Defender alongside a swarm I think you could profit quite nicely off of tractor beam though.

It really depends on your list. I think we will see all three used effectively. Personally I would lean towards the ion because the control element is much more substantial. If you are running just a single Defender alongside a swarm I think you could profit quite nicely off of tractor beam though.

/D title with tractor beam, and as many mean mofos with Outmaneuver you can pack into a list. Make your enemies have the evasion of a Decimator, but the HP of a normal ship. Muahahahahaha...

I will say up front, the best TIE Defender that this title works on is Colonel Vessery. The reason is that if his target has a Target Lock on him, Vessery will have the opportunity to earn, and spend, a target lock for each attack.

Did I miss something here? This doesn't seem to be right.

Vessery's ability says "When attacking, immediately after you roll attack dice, you may acquire a target lock on the defender if it already has a red target lock token." The defender needs a RED target lock token, meaning another one of your ships has to have Vessery's target already target locked.

According to the OP, if Vessery's target has a lock on Vessery, then Vessery's target will have a blue target lock, and Vessery will have the red one, so his ability won't trigger.

This is much better, as you control when Vessery's ability will trigger, not the other way around. Otherwise, people would seldom if ever lock Vessery.

I will agree, though, that Vessery is brutal with the TIE/D. Used him tonight and the ability to reroll on two attacks, again, just brutal.

In general, I'm not sure. Tractor Beam is alright for 1 point, but I think the extra damage on Flechette and Ion are what sell it to me.

The thing is, Flechette and Ion are sort of similiar in effect against small ships too. Flechette won't add the stress to ships that already have some, but all ion tokens are removed at the same time anyway, so you get no advantage in stacking ion tokens.

The real bonus to me, is targetting 2 different ships, assuming you have 2 potential targets, allowing you to lock one down with Stress or Ion, while piling damage on the other.

Something to think about, Tractor Beam gets worse as the game goes on because there will be fewer ships to make use of its effect. Ion and Flechette get better as the game goes on because they are controlling a larger fraction of the the opponent's ships.

I mostly agree, but, you could also use the same argument with Tractor Beam and say it gets better over time because it affects a larger fraction of the opponents ships.

Ohhhh it's not even a question.

Tractor Beam all the way dude. "Hey B-Wing. Eat every single one of my dice, right here, right now. And my buddy's. And his buddy's. What's that? You're dead? oh, you didn't have that one green dice roll to maybe save you? Well I'm just SO sorry about that..!"

Oh, I wouldn't say it has a cut and dried answer. It would depend fairly heavily on the ship build and the rest of the squadron.

If you are using an ace like Vessery and the rest of your list is equal or lower pilot skill, then Tractor Beam all the way, since it can buff all the attacks you make at a target. On the flip side, if you are going a bit cheaper and running a Delta or Onyx, or loading it up as one half of a pair of aces, then the value of Tractor Beam drops since there's far less opportunity for the rest of your squadron to take advantage of the lowered defense of the target

Flechette Cannons are not used on the ships of the Imperial Navy.

So to me its either Ions or Tractors

... and for now I think I like Ions a hair better.

Ohhhh it's not even a question.

Tractor Beam all the way dude. "Hey B-Wing. Eat every single one of my dice, right here, right now. And my buddy's. And his buddy's. What's that? You're dead? oh, you didn't have that one green dice roll to maybe save you? Well I'm just SO sorry about that..!"

I run B-wings a lot and I view their one evade dice as non existent. I went to a 13 man tournament the other day and they never once rolled a evade result. I would be worried if my starviper or X-wing had their defense lowered then my B-wing.

Ohhhh it's not even a question.

Tractor Beam all the way dude. "Hey B-Wing. Eat every single one of my dice, right here, right now. And my buddy's. And his buddy's. What's that? You're dead? oh, you didn't have that one green dice roll to maybe save you? Well I'm just SO sorry about that..!"

I run B-wings a lot and I view their one evade dice as non existent. I went to a 13 man tournament the other day and they never once rolled a evade result. I would be worried if my starviper or X-wing had their defense lowered then my B-wing.

Obviously it's a weapon of choice against Poe, who's IN HALF OF THE LISTS IN MY META NOW, FFG, Y ARE YOU DOING IT

ahem

It's a real boon against not_super_evasive_foes

and it really helps against 1-evaders.

because frankly, Kavil once managed to survive a swarm, because he rolled this single evade EVERYTIME

The other element to consider is which of the three cannons is your opponent most likely to burn their focus or evade on to avoid suffering the side effects and thus feel the full force of your primary weapon?

This will depend on the circumstances of course (for example a tractor beam shot when your Defender is the only ship that has it in arc, versus a situation when three or more ships all have their arcs lined up)

Thoughts? For me I thinking about it from the target's perspective ion probably scares me the most of the three under the most number of scenarios.

Delta Squadron Pilot — TIE Defender30Tractor Beam1Twin Ion Engine Mk. II1TIE/D0Ship Total: 32

Delta Squadron Pilot — TIE Defender30Flechette Cannon2Twin Ion Engine Mk. II1TIE/D0Ship Total: 33

Delta Squadron Pilot — TIE Defender30Ion Cannon3Twin Ion Engine Mk. II1TIE/D0Ship Total: 34

might be fun to try.

Delta Squadron Pilot — TIE Defender30Tractor Beam1Twin Ion Engine Mk. II1TIE/D0Ship Total: 32

Delta Squadron Pilot — TIE Defender30Flechette Cannon2Twin Ion Engine Mk. II1TIE/D0Ship Total: 33

Delta Squadron Pilot — TIE Defender30Ion Cannon3Twin Ion Engine Mk. II1TIE/D0Ship Total: 34

might be fun to try.

You're an evil, evil man. Bad man!