What I'm thinking of is applying the TLT mechanic to green dice.

Let's call this upgrade the 'Evasion System':

You roll 3 green dice two times. If you get at least 1 evade result in a roll, you get an evade. This way you get more reliable 1 or 2 evades, but no lucky 3 evades. It would be a nice way of balancing things out and a more reliable way of knowing if a ship is 'evade-durable' and diminishing the effects of luck (as the TLT does).

What do you guys think?

Too much dice-rolling, for an upgrade which already requires too many dice to be rolled.

SOunds like it would overcomplicate and add analysis paralysis in whether or not to spend tokens etc.

Though, of many possible solutions for TLTs specifically, the idea of pooling both defence rolls against the TLT attacks is potentially interesting - i.e. they roll both attacks, you roll all your defence dice and if you can cancel all of 1 attack, you take 1 damage, or all of both, you take no damage.

There's little more frustrating against TLTs than rolling 8 defence dice with soontir or similar and getting 4 evades on one and none on the other when a total of four between them distributed more evenly would have saved a hit - especially when you end up in the situation where your Evade token cannot help you even though you took the action to get it..

Reverse?

Roll three dice twice in a round and take two damage.

Don't see that catching on...

I thought you meant a weapon that does a lot of damage if it hits, but only rolls a few dice. When the game began, I figured there should be such a weapon, but the low agility ships are already quite vulnerable as it is. So maybe that train has left.

As for an ability or upgrade that defends like a tlt...I'd be careful with introducing more constant defence. Seems another nail in the coffin of 2 attack ships.

I do see a niche for an upgrade that is basically a one attack tlt; roll an extra red die on your primary attack, do 1 damage if you hit and then cancel all results. Could be a modification, A-Wings and various TIEs might benefit. Maybe this would also be the HWK primary fix.

Almost guaranteed 2 evades every attack, huh? Be prepared to go to time for a tie literally every game.

Its to much over powered

Well, most of your points (too much dice-throwing, analysis-paralysis, overpowered) are already parts of the original TLT I thought about the reverse-TLT after reading the 4agi vs. TLT thread and also playing a lot of high agility ships vs. TLTs myself. As the agility dice can be fickle and the TLT does a reliable sustained damage, the best option for a high agility/low HP ship is to not get hit at all, i.e. be outside range 3 or inside range 1. But then you don't need the agi dice at all, do you? It's like a next phase arcdodging, rangedodging

Actually autothrusters are an implementation of the range-dodging mechanic (at the same time arcdodging), giving you a free evade outside a certain range.

I was just trying to think outside of the box about a new type of 'class', as now we basically have: slow and ponderous with low agility and high HP and arcdogders with high agility and low HP. In the first class agility is almost a non-factor; it's that lucky 1 damage less that you really shouldn't count on; durability is its basic feature. In the second class, agility is a safety net, not a basic feature; you depend on arcdodging to avoid getting hit altogether, because even one bad agi roll (all blanks) can sink your whisper or unshielded ace like soontir.

I was thinking about something like a more reliable agility that also (for balance) hinders maneuverability. A paper to the low agi/high HP ships rock. Something that can reliably tank reliable, but low damage, but is susceptible to high unreliable damage.

Lingula: That would introduce more randomness into the game, not less. Interesting idea nontheless.

Introducing less randomness often leads to unhappy players. Most of the complaints - Fat Han, PWTs, tlts, Phantoms, PS 9 boosting/barrel rolling aces - are about ships that somehow give the opponent the impression that winning is a 'fait accompli'. The 'I cannot do anything about it, (s)he has an answer for any maneuver or any diceroll' feeling. The ship that is always out of arc. The ship that can always fire. The guaranteed hits or evades. That stuff works great for winning tournaments, but it can also create a negative experience. It makes players believe their skill does not matter.

Introducing less randomness often leads to unhappy players. Most of the complaints - Fat Han, PWTs, tlts, Phantoms, PS 9 boosting/barrel rolling aces - are about ships that somehow give the opponent the impression that winning is a 'fait accompli'. The 'I cannot do anything about it, (s)he has an answer for any maneuver or any diceroll' feeling. The ship that is always out of arc. The ship that can always fire. The guaranteed hits or evades. That stuff works great for winning tournaments, but it can also create a negative experience. It makes players believe their skill does not matter.

While in reality it means that the dice did not matter.

Yeah, I get that problem.

I see your reservations and I think they're valid. But at the same time, those things you mentioned, they're in the game already. I was thinking about a way to make those things less universal, actually.

Fat Han, PWT, TLT, those plug and play things would be hurt the most and wouldn't be instahits anymore. Maybe the reverse-TLT would work only against ships inside YOUR firing arc. Maybe it would make more of your maneuvers red, making you less nible. Maybe it would be the same as with autothrusters, the reverse-TLT would shut down if the enemy had you in his firing arc. All these changes would put more emphasis on positioning, and even FFG stated they want the arcs to matter more on turrets and so on.

I could see something like

Discard this card. Roll 3 defense dice. If the attack hits, cancel all dice and deal the defender one damage. Defend against this attack twice.

I thought this thread was going to be about a range 1-only turret that hits really well. Was going to say we have an Autoblaster turret already

It would be easier to have a card that just lets you gain 2 evade tokens instead of 1 when you evade.. Like stacking focus... It would be powerful so would have to have a draw back like can't fire the turn it is in use..

Excessive defense drags out a game that already struggles to be as quick to play as it wants to be. Trying to bring Offense and Defense in line with one another creates a more neutral state which is not fun for any player.

The closest "reverse" of TLTs now that wave 8 is here is probably a swarm of 4-5 ships with cluster missiles or homing missiles with guidance chips and dice modification/re-rolls.

If you've got multiple ships throwing crazy numbers of attack dice at low-agility TLT ships then you won't have to worry about TLTs after the first round of attacks. After that, even just a couple of ships with native 2 attack dice each should be enough to "mop up" if anything survives the opening barrage.

Missile swarms are going to be more potent and viable now thanks to guideance chips with zero point cost ... as long as you setup the list right and take the right actions with a good approach for the opening salvo/barrage.

Multi-TLT lists are still going to be strong, but players now have more solutions for fighting multi-TLT lists thanks to wave 8 ... thank the force, and the FFG team.

Maybe the next time I show up to a local tournament I won't see multi-TLT lists at almost every table.

Excessive defense drags out a game that already struggles to be as quick to play as it wants to be. Trying to bring Offense and Defense in line with one another creates a more neutral state which is not fun for any player.

But on the contrary, excessive, and particularly hard-to-avoid, attacks make it really un-fun to be on the receiving end. It's why K-Wings but the heck out of me, because there's nowhere you can shoot them from without taking at least one 3-die shot.

It's one reason why an alpha strike meta really concerns me, because the only ways to win are to weather it, in which case it turns right round and becomes un-fun for the alpha striker when they're being trashed with little recourse having already blown their payload, or out-alpha-strike them which just results in an alpha strike PS war to rival the ace PS war, and games resulting in half an hour of jockeying for position followed by one round of shooting..

Excessive defense drags out a game that already struggles to be as quick to play as it wants to be. Trying to bring Offense and Defense in line with one another creates a more neutral state which is not fun for any player.

That is a legitimate point, but increasing constantly offensive tools and synergies will make agility as a state hefty overcost. With the rise of alpha strikes as encouraged counter against TLT it becomes downright ironic, because you achieve shorter games at the price of massively invalidating the core x-wing mechanics Maneuvering and dog fighting.

Fatamatician, on 17 Mar 2016 - 3:10 PM, said:

Excessive defense drags out a game that already struggles to be as quick to play as it wants to be. Trying to bring Offense and Defense in line with one another creates a more neutral state which is not fun for any player.

I'm with thespaceinvader on this. I don't like TLTs, because for me they suck the strategic feeling out of the game: you can't outmaneuver them or evade their fire, just brute-force them. Alpha strike lists will be an answer for them, but I don't think a fun one.

On a sidetopic: for me the element that drags the game the most are the bumping rules. I would galdly see an overhaul of those.

Clearly the opposite is a cannon, rolls 1 attack die, and deals 4 damage on a hit.

Clearly the opposite is a cannon, rolls 1 attack die, and deals 4 damage on a hit.

Something like this could be interesting, actually.

Or a defensive mod that just says 'when you defend, roll one evade die, modifying as normal (but results can't be added). If you receive an evade result, cancel all dice." It would have to cost a bundle and/or be discard-on-use, but it would be interesting.

I don't know if the game can handle more stacked defense tokens or double your reroll mechanics. There are more creative ways to improve defense I'm sure. And keeping those out of the hands of already tanked up ships is going to be hard.

I could imagine a couple of ways to do this without making things overly complex. It would probably be an EPT, but the System, Crew, or Tech slots could also work. Assuming an EPT, here are some possibilities:

Bob & Weave - after defending against an attack, if you suffer no damage, receive 1 evade token if you do not have one

Jink - after you suffer 1 or more damage, receive 1 evade token if you do not already have one

Flip Out - if you do not have any stress tokens, you may receive 1 stress token to receive 1 evade token

Boba Fett crew member will jump from whatever ship to pull the TLT off that ship. Unfortunately, he'll die in the vacuum of space doing it...

An absolute reverse mechanic to TLT?

Modification: reinforced shields

"Once per round, when you would suffer exactly one damage, you may gain a stress to ignore that damage."

There you go.