Hello there fans of Tiny Plastic Spaceships!

I have been enjoying the gosh-darned heck out of Tractor beam in the last month, and thought I should share all the things I have learned and strategies I have thought about! (This pertains slightly to the Back To Dials Podcast's current contest)

Things you can do with a Tractor beam #1: Throw someone onto a rock!

Usefulness: 5/5 if you are a higher PS, 2/5 if you are lower PS

Fun: 4/5! Who doesn't like rocks!

Things to keep in mind: If you can throw the front half of their ship onto a rock, they will hit it next turn too! When placing rocks, try to keep them about 1.75 range distance apart, since a barrel roll in both directions is exactly range distance 2! This gives the most board space that is unsafe.

Things you can do with a Tractor Beam #2: Reduce Agility!

Usefulness: 4/5 Works best if Tractor beam is the first ship in your list to fire with lots follow up shots! Does not work on Ghosts or Decimators!

Fun: 1/5 This is the least exciting use of tractor beams, though it does get big ships (that aren't Ghosts or Decimators).

Things you can do with a Tractor Beam #3: Pull into and out of arc!

Usefulness: 3/5 Small ship only, and people are watching out for this.

Fun: 3/5

If you catch the PS right, you can pull someone with high PS into a friendly arc after they have already had and missed their opportunity to shoot. Or pull them out of arc after your buddy tried their darndest to blow them up! There is also the potential to shift range bands for extra attack or defense dice, though that is less effective than denying or adding shots.

Things you can do with a Tractor Beam #4: Unblock!

Usefulness: 2/5 (it is inconsistent and needs the right list)

Fun: 5/5!

Here we get to the good uses! If you block some small based ship, they miss their action and the touching ships can't shoot each other. However, if your tractor beam is lower PS than them and your blocker is lower than that, hi-jinks ensue! You block them, they don't get their action, they can't shoot your blocker, you tractor beam barrel roll them away and lower their agility, and your blocker then gets to shoot them! Boom!

Things you can do with a Tractor Beam #5: Mess up C-3po!

Usefulness: 1/5 There isn't a lot of C-3po out there.

Fun: 4/5

People generally run C-3po on a one agility ship so that they can guess 0 and get an automatic evade. Tractor beam changes their agility! If they have zero green to roll they can't even guess, so they will probably burn their guess on a no-damage attack! If they are at range three, don't tractor beam! They have a harder time guessing at two dice.

I feel like numbers 1,2 and 3 have been discussed to death, but numbers 4 and 5 start really showing how good this one point upgrade can be. Are there any great uses out there you have thought of that I have missed?

Second content post: Ships that can Equip a Tractor Beam!

Empire

Shuttle: Not a terrible choice mostly because the slot almost never gets filled. Now that Captain Yorr is seeing some table time, the PS works with Black Squadron Crack Shots.

Firespray: Not the worst choice, but no one flies Imperial Firesprays. Stick it in if you have the extra point, but remember it only works out of the front. Would Kath still get to stress them with a rolled crit?

TIE Defender: Wait for TID/d, really.

Scum

G-1A: A darn good Tractor beam carrier. Decent PS, not super expensive, but you can only take one.

YV-666: I'd be hesitant. This is an expensive ship to not be doing damage with.

Firespray: Should be okay. Same arguments as the imperial options, though the pilots tend to be a bit better.

M3-A: By far the cheapest option, and decent PS choices. Maybe the glass cannon won't get shot at and shattered if it is shooting blanks anyway?

Aggressor: This! This is why they have two cannon slots!

Rebels

YT-2400: Don't do this with the title (unless you are a mad genius). Can't do damage at all then.

B-Wing: I think it shines here. The named ones are overcosted, the Blues get PS killed, but I think the Dagger Squadron B-wing may be the best Tractor Beam carrier at the moment.

Argue your case! Why am I wrong?

I'm currently playing with a TAP TAP Vessery list (no proxy title) to see if it works and unblocking is a crazy good use. Twice yesterday Vessery took the tractor shot to negate r3 bonus and then roll someone off of the inquisitor for the slam dunk. It's a 1 point upgrade that is surprisingly useful and you just weigh if the ship shooting will get more use from that or from primaries. Often it's not useful but it's 1 point so it only needs to work about every other game and if it does work it's usually the only thing that would.

Have played it on Vrill and really liked the option to use it, particularly if it was at R3 vs an unstressed target... admittedly he's not in a great spot PS wise these days though.

Have played it on Vrill and really liked the option to use it, particularly if it was at R3 vs an unstressed target... admittedly he's not in a great spot PS wise these days though.

Vrill isn't in a terrible spot, at least he gets simultaneous fire with the new elephant in the room, Uboats. Low PS isn't bad with a tractor beam, because everyone has spent their defensive tokens and missed their opportunity to shoot (if blocked). Low PS really just can waste the agility lowering aspect.

(I mean, TB is better the higher PS you are and also the more unified your list's PS, but it is still a decent 1 point option for a usually unfilled spot)

I've been thinking about running the following, just for laughs:

Keyan Farlander (29)

Veteran Instincts (1)

Tractor Beam (1)

Advanced Sensors (3)

Wes Janson (29)

BB-8 (2)

Adaptability +1 (0)

Integrated Astromech (0)

Wedge Antilles (29)

Opportunist (4)

R2 Astromech (1)

Integrated Astromech (0)

The thought here is that Keyan hits a target with the Tractor Beam, Wes Hits it to strip a token, and then Wedge hits it with -2 evade using an extra die due to opportunist. Everyone is at PS9, so can juggle who moves/fires first

A bunch of glass cannons in this list, but it could be fun....for a 3 turns or so.

I've been thinking about running the following, just for laughs:

Keyan Farlander (29)

Veteran Instincts (1)

Tractor Beam (1)

Advanced Sensors (3)

Wes Janson (29)

BB-8 (2)

Adaptability +1 (0)

Integrated Astromech (0)

Wedge Antilles (29)

Opportunist (4)

R2 Astromech (1)

Integrated Astromech (0)

The thought here is that Keyan hits a target with the Tractor Beam, Wes Hits it to strip a token, and then Wedge hits it with -2 evade using an extra die due to opportunist. Everyone is at PS9, so can juggle who moves/fires first

A bunch of glass cannons in this list, but it could be fun....for a 3 turns or so.

I don't know, it seems like overkill to me. You're giving up 1/3rd of your damage dice when you tractor with Keyan, assuming you hit. There's also a number of ships who won't care about the extra -1 agility, but you're only paying a point for the tractor beam so that's not a big deal.

If you're going to give up a 3-dice primary attack to use a Tractor Beam, I'd want to either be certain I can put the target on a rock before it can fire, or to have at least that many attackers who can take advantage of the -1 agility status.

I've been thinking about running the following, just for laughs:

Keyan Farlander (29)

Veteran Instincts (1)

Tractor Beam (1)

Advanced Sensors (3)

Wes Janson (29)

BB-8 (2)

Adaptability +1 (0)

Integrated Astromech (0)

Wedge Antilles (29)

Opportunist (4)

R2 Astromech (1)

Integrated Astromech (0)

The thought here is that Keyan hits a target with the Tractor Beam, Wes Hits it to strip a token, and then Wedge hits it with -2 evade using an extra die due to opportunist. Everyone is at PS9, so can juggle who moves/fires first

A bunch of glass cannons in this list, but it could be fun....for a 3 turns or so.

I don't know, it seems like overkill to me. You're giving up 1/3rd of your damage dice when you tractor with Keyan, assuming you hit. There's also a number of ships who won't care about the extra -1 agility, but you're only paying a point for the tractor beam so that's not a big deal.

If you're going to give up a 3-dice primary attack to use a Tractor Beam, I'd want to either be certain I can put the target on a rock before it can fire, or to have at least that many attackers who can take advantage of the -1 agility status.

Oh, it is definitely overkill. I don't expect it to work, just to be kind of fun. It is a one point upgrade that is very situational. If someone is close to a rock, I could use it, otherwise I can just just fire with my primary.

I have run a TB on Keyan before, and I have found that it is one point well spent just in how it affects the opponents maneuvers. They try to avoid asteroids like the plague, and that makes them very predictable.

Has anyone tried the Aggressor with a Tractor Beam as their only cannon? Seems like it could be an intriguing option to free up points elsewhere. Two Aggressors with Tractor Beams and Fire Control systems are only 39 points, leaving 22 points for a third ship and additional upgrades on the Aggressor.

the best usage I have found is .... What were we talking about,

A card for a ship most people did not buy ;/p

I blocked Vader with a z-95, then shot him with tractor beam from a G1-A and the z-95 got to shoot at Vader at range 1 with focus... Great fun

Has anyone tried multiple Tractor Beam shenanigans? I imagine it gets a lot harder to avoid those rocks when you have to worry about getting TB'd twice. However, I'm not sure about the wisdom of committing so much of your list to attacks that don't deal damage (directly).

You missed two uses.

First, if you have debris instead of rocks you can use it to add stress. Which could be very useful if you catch PTLers in arc.

Second, you can Tractor Beam ships onto mines or bombs. It's used less frequently but imagine the joy of Tractor Beaming Fel onto a Prox Mine and watch him roll his own death.

Has anyone tried multiple Tractor Beam shenanigans? I imagine it gets a lot harder to avoid those rocks when you have to worry about getting TB'd twice. However, I'm not sure about the wisdom of committing so much of your list to attacks that don't deal damage (directly).

I have a Brobots list with TBs on both. It's untested but it has two TB without killing the overall value of the list.

When placing rocks, try to keep them about 1.75 range distance apart, since a barrel roll in both directions is exactly range distance 2!

Also the movement from TB can only happen once to a small base per round.

Things you can do #6:

Mention you have a tractor beam every time an enemy ship moves close to a rock. It has no strategic value other than to worry your opponent and mess up his thinking!

Things you can do #7:

Hit your opponent with an ion cannon shot and bring him closer to the edge of the board with a tractor beam. You'd be amazed at how much "closer" you are to the edge of the board when a tractor/ion combo hits you!

When placing rocks, try to keep them about 1.75 range distance apart, since a barrel roll in both directions is exactly range distance 2!

That isn't actually true. A range band is exactly 2.5 bases lengthwise. Otherwise it is a good idea if you are running TBs. As someone already mentioned, throwing a ship onto a mine is extremely enjoyable.

Also the movement from TB can only happen once to a small base per round.

Oh, but it is true! If you picture the ship you are shooting with the tractor beam, it has a base (length 1). To barrel roll them right, it takes a 1 straight template (length 2) and their new position (length 3). But you can also barrel roll them left! Template (4) and new position (5) gives five total base lengths, which is range 2!

I recommended 1.75ish range because of bumps, the need to overlap, and that Greek jerk Pythagoras.

I've been running a TB along with a K wing bomber. I'm not entirely sure that its worth it, but it can certainly help setup bombs that would otherwise not have been possible.

Oh, Tractor Beam with various Mines is rather hysterical.

I still want to try:

Cartel Marauder Kihraxz

2 x Cartel Marauder Kihraxz w/ Feedback Array

Cartel Space w/ title and Ion Cannon

Cartel Space w/ title and Tractor Beam

Has anyone tried the Aggressor with a Tractor Beam as their only cannon? Seems like it could be an intriguing option to free up points elsewhere. Two Aggressors with Tractor Beams and Fire Control systems are only 39 points, leaving 22 points for a third ship and additional upgrades on the Aggressor.

Maybe something like this?

IG-88B (36)

Crack Shot (1)

Advanced Sensors (3)

Tractor Beam (1)

Autothrusters (2)

IG-2000 (0)

IG-88D (36)

Crack Shot (1)

Advanced Sensors (3)

Tractor Beam (1)

Autothrusters (2)

IG-2000 (0)

Binayre Pirate (12)

Feedback Array (2)

Total: 100

View in Yet Another Squad Builder

Insert 1 point EPT of choice (VI might be better). I doubt its all that great, but it could be fun. You give your opponent a lot to think about. The IGs can end up in a ton of places. Each has a TB to worry about. FCS could be used instead and that frees up 2 points. You don't have to use the Tractor Beam, but its kind of an insurance policy. It would be pretty funny to tractor someone into the Pirate's Feedback Array zone.

I think Tractor Beam is just a good 2nd Cannon option on the IG-88's.

An update! The FAQ says ships do not take stress if Imperial Kath cancels a (kaboom) as part of Ion Cannon's game effect, so we can assume the same is true for Tractor Beam. C'est la vie, it was an edge case anyway.

My evil Scum tractor beam list:

Transarii+Crack Shot+Title+Tractor Beam (21)

Latts+HLC+Weapons Engineer (43)

Guri+Wired+Autothrusters+Title+FCS (36)

They are all 5s and you have multiple ways to reduce a ship's agility. If/when Transarii dies, it is not a huge loss and chances are serious damage has already been done to your opponent.

When placing rocks, try to keep them about 1.75 range distance apart, since a barrel roll in both directions is exactly range distance 2!

That isn't actually true. A range band is exactly 2.5 bases lengthwise. Otherwise it is a good idea if you are running TBs. As someone already mentioned, throwing a ship onto a mine is extremely enjoyable.

Also the movement from TB can only happen once to a small base per round.

Oh, but it is true! If you picture the ship you are shooting with the tractor beam, it has a base (length 1). To barrel roll them right, it takes a 1 straight template (length 2) and their new position (length 3). But you can also barrel roll them left! Template (4) and new position (5) gives five total base lengths, which is range 2!

I recommended 1.75ish range because of bumps, the need to overlap, and that Greek jerk Pythagoras.

I understand what you mean to say, but how you worded it, "barrel roll in both directions is range 2!", is untrue, that's stating a single barrel roll will take you much to far. Yes range two is exactly 5 bases wide. But one direction is only 3 bases (outside to outside), out of the 2.5, so only slightly more then 1 range band. So while yes, the 1.75 is the safest placement for asteroids for successful control with TB, I was just letting you know how you chose to word it, isn't the most clear way of saying it.

When placing rocks, try to keep them about 1.75 range distance apart, since a barrel roll in both directions is exactly range distance 2!

That isn't actually true. A range band is exactly 2.5 bases lengthwise. Otherwise it is a good idea if you are running TBs. As someone already mentioned, throwing a ship onto a mine is extremely enjoyable.

Also the movement from TB can only happen once to a small base per round.

Oh, but it is true! If you picture the ship you are shooting with the tractor beam, it has a base (length 1). To barrel roll them right, it takes a 1 straight template (length 2) and their new position (length 3). But you can also barrel roll them left! Template (4) and new position (5) gives five total base lengths, which is range 2!

I recommended 1.75ish range because of bumps, the need to overlap, and that Greek jerk Pythagoras.

I understand what you mean to say, but how you worded it, "barrel roll in both directions is range 2!", is untrue, that's stating a single barrel roll will take you much to far. Yes range two is exactly 5 bases wide. But one direction is only 3 bases (outside to outside), out of the 2.5, so only slightly more then 1 range band. So while yes, the 1.75 is the safest placement for asteroids for successful control with TB, I was just letting you know how you chose to word it, isn't the most clear way of saying it.

Yeah, I was a bit off my game writing that part. Maybe something like "No space between rocks just under range two apart is safe, because you can choose which way to roll the tractored ship."

Either way, just under range two is one of the best options both because there is no safe zone between them and there is less area on the board that is clear.