Depends on what the TIE/D brings as it's cannon. Tractor Beam is worthless, so it is an issue of one primary attack vs a primary + turret, or double turret shot. All the large ships are the primary reason I am hesitant to go all out with Tractor Beams. I am definitely still liking Ion Cannons on Defenders.

I think the tractor beam will be the final nail in Han's coffin. Having 0 agility removes the use of C3PO (except for the actual use of the tractor beam, fluff win) and he goes down really quickly. Suddenly ships that could barely scratch him are now pouring damage, he's gone quicker than a Decimator.

Against high-agility targets (up to 3 let's say), it's a toss-up. Some turns it will succeed, in others it will fail. More importantly (and as others have mentioned), the threat will be there. And with that threat, the need to spend defense tokens to make sure it doesn't go through. For the Defender vs. high-agility, it will be another shot when they cannot afford to get hit.

I've played against a souped-up Jake with Vessery, and the tractor beam would always make the opponent use defense tokens. There was never a threat of moving him on an asteroid (good flying I guess), but the finishing move was when a tractor beam hit and I was able to barrel roll Jake into range 2. We always think of good barrel rolls, the ones that make Soontir untouchable, but the are always opportunities for bad barrel rolls, where suddenly you're in range 1 of the enemy ships and in arc.

So, Han just switches to Chewie/Artoo. I think people are so addicted to Threepio, that they forget that the Falcon was playable before Threepio came out.

Hopefully, they'll drop han and switch to the ghost

Tbeam immune; make for overall more enjoyable games

Also, defenders won't like phantom-levels of dice coming at them without an x7 buffer

Wait... Fat Han bad, but Fat Ghost okay?

Hmmmm....

Notice I didn't say that Fat Han was good or bad, but I do believe that he got hit repeatedly over the last waves.

Before, even if you cornered Han he would still mitigate a lot of damage. Tractor beam seems to have a skill multiplier, in that it's a tool that can be very successful if you fly well. I like that. It can lead to situations where you catch Han and dish out 7+ damage to him in a single round, with just 2-3 ships.

The base Ghost is 40 points, right? Add in Autoblaster Turret, Electronic Baffles, and Antipursuit Lasers, and you have 45 points of rampage that just cannot be stopped until death. Any obvious crew? Zeb seems like a winner, and Chopper as pilot is probably the right move. Any obvious ones I'm missing?

Hera is 40 points

Chopper is 37

Base is 36/35 probs

IMO, winner is Ezra + hera on chopper or the generic. With FCS, you get a disgusting jouster that gives no ****

Considering that 60% of squads have Super Poe in them and the remaining 40% have Soontir in them, good.

Tractor Beam meta ftw.

I don't understand this, if you hit soontir he is going down tractor beam or no. I for one would never want to waste a shot that hit soontir on no damage. Also ioning soontir is arguably much stronger.

The arguments in this thread are observed, stuff like using 1 ig-88 to move a ship into range one of another? Wtf you just traded half your lists damage. If the attack hits would you rather not just do the damage then slighlty increase the chance of further damage.

Tie defenders will use this but personally I will be running ion cannons.

Considering that 60% of squads have Super Poe in them and the remaining 40% have Soontir in them, good.

Tractor Beam meta ftw.

The arguments in this thread are observed, stuff like using 1 ig-88 to move a ship into range one of another? Wtf you just traded half your lists damage. If the attack hits would you rather not just do the damage then slighlty increase the chance of further damage.

Crab bros sometimes end up in situations when the closer one gets dodged by millimetres by a BR or just manevure

and you nag the foe right into the pincers of the second crab, that wouldn't have had a shot at all

and give him a full hand of KILLTHEMALL

aka an enemy win -1 evade and him having 4 attacks

Hera is 40 points

Chopper is 37

Base is 36/35 probs

IMO, winner is Ezra + hera on chopper or the generic. With FCS, you get a disgusting jouster that gives no ****

Dang, 36 is cheap. You could do two with Electronic Baffles and still have room for a Gray Squadron Stresshog, or a variety of x-wings /b-wings/whatever.

Hitting with tractor beam still removes stealth device and makes Soontir 2 agility against your primary. With a good chance to boost or barrel roll him into range one.

Vessery with crack shot/tractor beam will be a major threat to Soontir.

Hera is 40 points

Chopper is 37

Base is 36/35 probs

IMO, winner is Ezra + hera on chopper or the generic. With FCS, you get a disgusting jouster that gives no ****

Dang, 36 is cheap. You could do two with Electronic Baffles and still have room for a Gray Squadron Stresshog, or a variety of x-wings /b-wings/whatever.

I would be hesitant to use a Ghost without the title, unless you are using Hera crew. Keeps them very mobile. Still looking forward to Chopper being an annoying troll, then Sabine to release and finish them off.

I come a bit late to the discussion, but i am in fact a bit concerned about Tractor beam.

It's going to be pretty good on B-Wings and Scyks, and insane on defenders, especially high PS ones.

I have played quite a lot of Vessery, and while i certainly will enjoy him becoming truly competitive, i am concerned about the meta.

Him with TB is very obviously powerful, even more when combined with another /D Defender. I predict that he will be in some of the most competitive list out there. Which is totally fine as i want to play these too!

But it might also tip the pretty well balanced meta we have in a fashion that this is played more than anything else. It is good damage on a /D, and a debuff for a turn, and direct control of an enemy ship. For 1 point that's really hefty!

Well we will see, maybe i'm wrong and it's just a strong addition to the game and nothing more!

Vessery with TIE/D is certainly going to be strong, but I think he'll fit for his points - I mean with JUST TIE/D and the Tractor Beam he costs 36 - that's a point more than maximally tooled-out Soontir, with nothing whatsoever extra put into making him more survivable. And he's still only PS6. Defenders are still expensive even with TIE/D and TIE/x7 as fixes, so they *should* be good. They cost more than Phantoms for goodness' sake, and they don't get the systems or crew slots. They have a different role, for sure, though.

On anyone else, it's a much, much bigger trade-off, because it costs you your damaging shot on the turn you use it, and costs you a slot which could have an HLC in it (unless you're a Brobot). And let's not forget, the meta is going to have time to get used to the concept before TIE/Ds start being used; Imp Vets isn't going to drop for months.

I don't think it will be any worse for the meta than TLTs or stresshogs, and the meta seems to have adapted perfectly well to those.

The reason you'd use it to shoot Soontir instead of just using a weapon is this:

If you hit him once because of Crack Shot or because he rolled bad on defense once, so you've done one damage. Then, he likely will not have spent a token or two either knowing that they wouldn't save him or he didn't roll the results needed for them to work. Then he's down one defense die from Stealth Device, but still has a token or two to negate your buddies' attacks.

With Tractor Beam, and especially with Tractor Beam and Crack Shot, and DOUBLE ESPECIALLY with Tractor Beam, Crack Shot, and a TIE/D, you can crack shot away an evade, move him into range with that Tractor Beam, and then he will melt because 2 dice, even with tokens, cannot stand up to repeated 3 or 4 dice attacks. Essentially, hitting him with Tractor Beam reduces his defense by 2 instead of 1. Then, 35 points evaporates.

BUT, obviously, the attack has to hit. I can definitely understand why you'd just like to deal one damage. So, its a player preference.

With vessery the odds of getting three hits are the best you'll ever get against soontir, he really won't want to get hit by tractor so unless he's lucky he`ll have to burn some tokens.

So vessery even if he doesn't do much damage will strip fel of his tokens leaving him open to the rest of the squad.

If normal green dice logic holds true vessery will leave fel in a sorry state.

And therein lies the kink

Green dice logic may as well be green dice leprechauns for how nonsensical an idea it is

Scared of TB? Large base ships. Ghost and Decimator are totally immune too. Sounds like TB was meant to soften the blow of the MOV ruling, giving some incentive back to bringing large ships to the table, and at the same time spanking aces like Corran and Soontir.

Can't wait for Imp Vets. CANT WAIT. GUNBOAT! (Well, almost as good.)

Can't say it's much of an incentive for large ships. There's only two 0 agility ones, 0 agility bring a problem in its own regard, and the things that don't take tbeams still exist

Aggressors won't enjoy Tie/d tractors eating their ago, esp when the defender (in my experience) kicks their ass hard with the 4k while their fat asses are dependent on red and getting stuck on obstacles

Han just gets ruined with a single successful tbeam

None of the 2 agi ships are going to enjoy going down to 1 or 0

Tbeam can't affect large ship movement because the displacement + base size would just trolololo them onto rocks and/or off the table. The small ship only clause is there to make sure they don't go extinct

Most of them do still care; A LOT

I agree, large ships are not the solution to this.

The Ghost is an odd ship to get your head around. It has 4 attack and interesting Pilot skills, but it will be very difficult to bring these attacks to bear. PS7 max, no movement other than maneuver. So yeah what are you going to do with the 4 primary. Not much! Then youbstart looking at Ghost/Phantom which makes it obscenely expensive. Now you are an oversized Firespray, congrats! So you equip a turret. Okay you now have a ship that can probably shoot somebody... But is so expensive that it has a gigantic "kill me asap" sign painted on its hull.

No i don't think the Ghost is the solution, and she won't be likely to see competitive play a lot either.

The VT is not the best choice either. Kenkirk is not a good choice against TB obviously, and we don't see a lot of RAC or Oicunn lately because of the MoV nerf. Also a couple of Defenders are likely to kill a VT pretty fast with primaries only!

Now that we have Tractor beams, I look forward to this:

Dead obi is too cheap for a global ability like that.

Dead obi is too cheap for a global ability like that.

he's not dead, he's just... living impaired.

Dead obi is too cheap for a global ability like that.

He's a space Gandalf Jesus of Epic!

Proton torpedoes for Everyooone!

Also shouldn't he need Luke around? He never manifests for anyone else.

Gameplay > fluff, baby

Dead obi is too cheap for a global ability like that.

Or did something on the card make you think you could equip Obiwan with the dead-side up?