With these new Tie defender cards I sort of feel like things are going too far.

Tie defenders now get the A-Wing "Fix" Chardaan Refit but with a free evade token. They were already a chore to kill with their 3 hull, 3 shields, 3 agility, barrel roll and a good dial. Now they get free evades on top of that.

Tie defenders now get the Y-Wing "fix" except unlike the Y-Wing they had good damage to start with so they didn't really need it.

These ships with high agility are already some of the most tanky ships in the game. Lots of health but 1 agility ships seem like they are becoming less and less viable since they are just too squishy.

My favorite, the A-Wing, is falling farther behind viability since it was already struggling to make a difference in battle with it's 2 dice. More and more it must compete with ships able to attack multiple times yet are even more resilient.

Y-Wings seem overshadowed completely by this new defender. Less damage, less liklihood of dealing damage less movement options and 1 agility 8 toughness simply not keeping it alive long.

Do they have to keep making all these high damage high agility ships so difficult to kill? I used to think they survived by their movement. Nowadays they can just fight head-on and have fine chances of victory. It's like sure, they can play the arc dodger game. but at this point do they really need to?

Am I overreacting?

Yes.

The defenders were a lot worse off than either the A or Y Wing. Their fix therefore needed to be more radical.

Yes, A wings are horrible. It's not like 5 A Wings are winning major tournaments... Or wait, what?

Tie defenders now get the A-Wing "Fix" Chardaan Refit but with a free evade token. They were already a chore to kill with their 3 hull, 3 shields, 3 agility, barrel roll and a good dial. Now they get free evades on top of that.

The Defender has a **** dial. They need to waste their Mod slot just to make it not terrible.

You will only ever face three defenders, and they all have comparatively low PS so they can be easily outmaneuvered.

I do agree though, recent releases have vastly overshadowed the earlier offerings.

Defenders ARE supposed to be the best fighters in the Galacy though

Now, really? You are saying that Defenders are already better than A/Ys when actually nobody play Defenders and A/Ys are methodically present in good rebel lists? Also, I'm not sure where the "good" dial is in the Defender package. I think this new expansion is only the first to come of a new way FFG is updating their game without releasing very new ships and Rebels and Scum will see interesting things in the future too. I'm glad they started with Imps because literally Bombers and Defenders were methodically left at home in favor of swarms or aces.

You're over-reacting. To get the benefits of the X7 title you've got to keep at speeds three and up, meaning long slashing attack runs. Either you try long flanking curves around the board, or start K-turning back and forth; either way, a decent opponent will prep for both and position ships accordingly.

Furthermore, if you get into a tightfurball, the lack of hard turns is going to hurt you. I would wager there are going to be quite a few occassions where a Defender has no option but to 'bug out' and try reposition over the next turn or two. Again, a good opponent will look to exploit the Defender's lack of knife fighting ability.

I think we're going to see more Defender's in play (which is good), but I hardly think they're going to ruin the game.

Standard gut-reaction to new stuff.

In this case however, you're forced into flying predictably/give up other stuff to get most of the new effects.

Ryad is balanced around her medium PS, etc.

White 4K, free evade, -2 pts. As with the Contracted Scout, good plus to the game...but too cheap. Simply...too cheap. Title cost cero should be ok, this is a moderate power creep. But interesting.

As a person who flies 3 A-Wings, I am no longer competitive.

But the Countess, way to far. Wow. If all her K-Turns were white not do bad but now.... Too much.

I think something you are missing is that Defenders are twice as much, base cost, as a Y Wing. For 36 points you get 16 hit points. Not as agile, but there is the problem. All ships have their pro's and cons. It is up to the player to maximise the effect of the individual ships. Without Twin Ion MK II, a stressed Defender has to go straight if it wants to clear that stress, as been said before, it has to give up a decent slot to remain unpredictable. Is Ryad going to be like some crazy Pong of the old Atari days, doing 5 K's? Who knows?

But I believe they have made the Defender as intended, a superiority fighter that is up there on abilities and elusiveness. People seem to just want to fly at stuff and kill it, not giving much thought on actual flying. maybe thats because of the old Fat PWT, who knows. But I think the game got interesting.

The Demon God of Starfighters has awoken! Welcome the launch of the TIE Fighter Miniatures Game, now with better graphics, a refined engine, and is that the faintest glimmer of Cygnus Spaceworks on the horizon? (I kid)

With these new Tie defender cards I sort of feel like things are going too far.

Tie defenders now get the A-Wing "Fix" Chardaan Refit but with a free evade token. They were already a chore to kill with their 3 hull, 3 shields, 3 agility, barrel roll and a good dial. Now they get free evades on top of that.

[snip]

Am I overreacting?

In a word: yes. You're overreacting. The Defender dial is not "good" and comparing it to the A-Wing is just...weird.

A basic PS1 Defender with the X7 title isn't that much cheaper than the top A-Wing ace. Even having said that, the two ships perform very different roles anyway. The Y-Wing is at least 6 points cheaper per ship even with a TLT and R2 astromech so again the comparison seems flawed.

You just have to look at how infrequently Defenders were taken compared to how frequently Y-Wings and A-Wings appeared to see the ship just wasn't competitive at it's base cost and abilities. Now it has some options which mean we will actually see it being used. It will be strong, yes, but so are Prototypes, Greens, Jake, Tycho and generic Y-Wings. More viable ships is a good thing. It's possible for a ship to get better without it automatically making other ships from a different faction worse.

“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” – Yoda.

I, for one, welcome our new TIE Defender overlords!

Yes, you are overreacting.

More tanky than an A-Wing? A wings have access to autothrusters, plus native boost, plus native evade, plus 2 EPTs. In order to gain the evade token, Defenders have to renounce to more than half their dial, or its total, absolute awesome defense is... A simple focus token.

More damage than Title Y-wings? Please, even you have surely realized than defender's double-attack option involves cannons that only do 1 capped damage, or no damage at all. I know that you had to make an argument and blah blah blah, but still...

Standard gut-reaction to new stuff.

In this case however, you're forced into flying predictably/give up other stuff to get most of the new effects.

Ryad is DOA around her medium PS, etc.

Fixed it for ya

To be honest I don't really see Imperial Veterans bringing out TIE Defenders as much as say Rebel Aces Brought out A-wings. Rebel Aces is kind of funny as it had one ship that needed a fix (the A-wing) and another ship that was already some where the top (B-wing). however at the time like Imperial Aces the ship selection was not set up so there wasn't that many ships that were just never flown (Except the TIE advanced but that got fixed).

We now have 32 ships (37 if you count the scum separately from the rebs and imps and 41 if you count huge ships also) double the number of ships in Wave 4 when Rebel Aces came out. There is a lot of ships out there. A few have became top tier and everything else has either fallen from top or never reached it. There are plenty of ships that need an "update" it depends on how FFG is going to update those and in which order.

Crack Swarm would like to have a word with your power creeps.

Indeed. Calling the TIE/x7 a 'chaardan refit' super-A-wing, and the TIE/D a 'BTL-A4' super-y-wing is a nice way to think about it, but in both cases, you're talking about practically 2-1 odds and the cheaper ships still have advantages.

I fly a TIE swarm, so I feel the 2-dice-attack-pain, but the A-wing does at least have the pretty-****-nicely-priced Proton Rockets up its sleeve. 5 attack dice and a 'free' elite pilot talent slot for Crack Shot is into 'dodge this!' territory.

Ryad is DOA around her medium PS, etc.

Fixed it for ya

If you truly believe that, you can have my pitty. Doesn't mean much, but at least it's there.

Just because a ship isn't top PS mean it isn't worth it. Her ability opens a world of positions that normally wouldn't be doable back to back. If you can't see how that makes her viable, well, I don't know what will.

White 4K, free evade, -2 pts. As with the Contracted Scout, good plus to the game...but too cheap. Simply...too cheap. Title cost cero should be ok, this is a moderate power creep. But interesting.

Except it isn't too cheap, as both MathWing, and our own tabletop experiences have shown this.

Now the designers decided to show it as well - and finally we'll get to see Defenders on the tables.

Imperial Veterans also adds the 18pt Scanner Shuttle that means your mid PS Defenders all know where the enemy is going.

I agree that there is a slight power creep in X-Wing, and I think it is intended. The new stuff that is released needs to be powerful for two reasons;

- to make the meta changing and prevent the game from stalling.

- to make money. If the new stuff isn't powerful enough fewer people will buy it.

Looking at Imperial Veterans, though, I don't see power creep. I predict that Colonel Vessery is the only defender pilot that will even come close to a competitive list. Countess Ryad has an amazing ability on paper, but with such a low PS she will not be able to make enough use out of it. The triple defender lists some people are getting worked up about, I just don't see them cutting the mustard. If you could have had three defenders with juke, TIE/x7 and TIE mkII then maybe, but that is not to be.

Wave 8 is the first really obvious power creep IMO. Other waves have added a few powerful cards, sometimes a little over the edge, but never such a plethora of improvement.

Yeah, it's a shame there were no A-wings or Y-wings at worlds...oh wait.

A 15 point A-wing can still ruin any defender's day with block after block. Stresshog will still mess with a lot of players and deny those hard turns. TLT, especially from Horton, could strip tokens and plink away those 6 hps pretty quick. Yeah I don't think the defender will totally destroy those ships and keep them from the table. The defender is now balanced, I feel, you are finally getting a good deal for what you are paying for

As a person who flies 3 A-Wings, I am no longer competitive.

But the Countess, way to far. Wow. If all her K-Turns were white not do bad but now.... Too much.

Really...at 34 points? Compare her to Kanan Jarrus at 38 points in a Ghost...now what do you think?

You guys confuse me. Is the Defender (pre-imp vets) easy to kill or not?