Okay, so a bit of a dramatic title, but I think it's an interesting question. Now that the details of the Gozantis and the GR-75s are out, I think we're all reasonably convinced that they'll make a big difference to our game. The question is, which is the more useful addition to our fleets? Will the rebels get more out of their super cheap transports, or is the slightly higher cost of the cruisers worth it for the boost they'll provide for the Imperials?

I know my own thoughts, but I'm possibly biased towards my chosen faction, so I'd be interested to know other people's.

Both win!

Both win!

I think that a 19 point deployment / activation for the Rebels is the biggest boost to either side, but Gonzati Assault and the ability to lob 2 red from downtown with a CF dial is also pretty awesome.

Both sides get cheap activations, and a ship that is custom built to screen big ships from torpedo boats (an ongoing problem).

Hard to say a side won, They are both excellent. The imps seems more offensive and the Rebs seems to be more Defense, they are different and I love them both.

Honestly I'm hoping they have a plan to help counter the need to run super high activation fleets without throwing balance off.

But regardless, this feels like they are trying to stuff more squadron play down our throats. I'm OK with it, but I don't know if anyone "won" this wave.

Ask Again Come Wave 4.

Honestly, and this is with no actual play experience just immediate opinion, I feel Rebels did.

While the Gozanti Cruiser is nice, the amount of firepower any Flotilla can possibly bring is minuscule and the Gozantis' (relatively) high costs seem disproportionate with what they feel like they can do; especially 28pts for jumping up a single dice arc to...a single less reliable but longer range dice.

The GR75 provides the same level of fleet support (good Squad command potential, same value on the other upgrades) but, again considering all of their miniscule damage output, the ability to apply the various new buffs like Repair Crews or the debuffs (like Slocer Tools) far more cheaply seems like it will be far more effective.

A GR75 with Slicer Tools is far MN ore palatable to toss into the path of that looming ISD when it's costing only 25pts, versus the Gozanti's 30. Sure it's only a 5pts difference, but when there are multiple Flotillas introduced, or the various upgrades that could be taken, the cheaper nature of the GR75 is simply better.

Basically, the Flotillas are fleet support, through and through, and the tiny increase in firepower that the Gozanti brings, in my untested estimation, will likely play far less of a role than simply having a cheaper support ship that lets your line ships do the work with more/better tools.

I'm hoping my initial assessment is wrong, it just seems that the Gozanti just don't bring enough firepower to be of substantial value (relative to their points, of course) and don't offer better support for the Imperials than the GR75s do for the Rebels.

I'm not really sure I feel the extra six points for the Combat Retrofit GR-75 is worth it compared to the extreme cheapness of the alternative (exception if you plan on having T. Farr relatively close by). Conversely, I like that the red dice of the one Gozanti is an option, since having them up close to combat ships is not optimal due to their fragility. I'll say the Rebel Transport since itbis cheaper and functions well at co-ordination of squads, which tend to deal a lot of mayhem en masse compared to the Imperial TIE Swarm options. I could be wrong (and I'm admittedly bias) but I just dunno about having more than two Gozanti on the field compared to having several sets of Rebel Transport.

I think flotillas are the answer to the high activation fleet problem. We can now use our big ship fleets and use flotillas to pad our activation up. I think the most of them we'll see is a TRC-90 plus flotilla fleet, and maybe replacing a couple of raiders in Clones masterpiece. I'm thinking of Demolisher with Suppressor with repair crews flying with it.

Imperials win handily.

Imps just got a massive boost that the Rebels already had, in the form of a carrier designed for activating their huge numbers of cheap but fragile squadrons. This has radically changed the entire Imperial game and more list archetypes will now be possible. Remember, all TIE variants are 12 points or less stock. That's a huge number of squadrons and previously even a fully upgraded fleet couldn't actually activate all of those.

That said, both factions got some much needed defensive improvements especially in regards to the Demolisher.

Slicer Tools and an offensive retrofit slot for a tractor beam makes me think Demolisher lost. It will be somewhat hard to use, but it would go a long way to screw with Demolisher's alpha strike. You just have to make sure you're forcing a choice between taking the combo or exposing yourself to fire.

Slicer Tools and an offensive retrofit slot for a tractor beam makes me think Demolisher lost. It will be somewhat hard to use, but it would go a long way to screw with Demolisher's alpha strike. You just have to make sure you're forcing a choice between taking the combo or exposing yourself to fire.

I don't think it did though.

Demolisher can still approach and pass these at full speed from outside of range (Quantum Storm excepted). But even more importantly, other ships can strike these from long range with a solid, or even guaranteed, chance to get an accuracy and blow them away.

Demolisher wants to have a Nav ready at all times and can do that with a token. Yes, that token can be stripped by a flotilla with Tractor Beams, but at that point I'd say you have spent close to double the cost of the ship that did it. And it WILL die the next turn in most scenarios.

I think the only real change we've seen here is the delay of Demolisher. And maybe that 's all that is needed. But people shouldn't forget that the real threat Demo has is the backup of other powerful ships to ensure the job is finished.

Slicer Tools and an offensive retrofit slot for a tractor beam makes me think Demolisher lost. It will be somewhat hard to use, but it would go a long way to screw with Demolisher's alpha strike. You just have to make sure you're forcing a choice between taking the combo or exposing yourself to fire.

I thought the same thing. Either Demolisher lets its range become extremely limited, or it wastes two attacks swatting the GR-75. Either way that mitigates the whole triple tap pretty effectively.

Slicer Tools and an offensive retrofit slot for a tractor beam makes me think Demolisher lost. It will be somewhat hard to use, but it would go a long way to screw with Demolisher's alpha strike. You just have to make sure you're forcing a choice between taking the combo or exposing yourself to fire.

I thought the same thing. Either Demolisher lets its range become extremely limited, or it wastes two attacks swatting the GR-75. Either way that mitigates the whole triple tap pretty effectively.

Gladiator won't do that though. Gladiator doesn't have to worry about the Flotilla as an offensive threat after it activates, and before it activates if it isn't on an intercept course the Flotilla can't both easily activate squadrons (it's only real offensive threat) AND move to intercept. Further, unlike the Gladiator, the only speed 4 flotilla isn't nearly as maneuverable and will need to telegraph such an action well in advance, allowing Demolisher to dodge or another ship more suited to the task to take out the Flotilla.

Slicer Tools and an offensive retrofit slot for a tractor beam makes me think Demolisher lost. It will be somewhat hard to use, but it would go a long way to screw with Demolisher's alpha strike. You just have to make sure you're forcing a choice between taking the combo or exposing yourself to fire.

I thought the same thing. Either Demolisher lets its range become extremely limited, or it wastes two attacks swatting the GR-75. Either way that mitigates the whole triple tap pretty effectively.

Gladiator won't do that though. Gladiator doesn't have to worry about the Flotilla as an offensive threat after it activates, and before it activates if it isn't on an intercept course the Flotilla can't both easily activate squadrons (it's only real offensive threat) AND move to intercept. Further, unlike the Gladiator, the only speed 4 flotilla isn't nearly as maneuverable and will need to telegraph such an action well in advance, allowing Demolisher to dodge or another ship more suited to the task to take out the Flotilla.

The Gladiator doesn't have a choice. It is possible to maneuver as such that Demolisher doesn't get black range after its engine tech on turn 2, but the flotilla can get within at least long range of it. especially if you have 2 slicer tool/tractor beam transports and deploy your fleet in one cluster. If the fleet is kept relatively close to each other then Demolisher either ignores it and suffers the consequences or trades down and kills the flotilla. Either way is beneficial.

If you look at it from a $ perspective, Fantasy Flight is the faction that won.

I would say I rank the Rebel Scum to Imperial in Wave 3 55/45. The slight edge would be because, ****, the rebels just got an 18 point ship.

I can't help but think that something will stand out or change the game overall that I'm not seeing right now. Just like Wave 2, when Lando and the MC30s arrived. I thought those would be garbage! Lando? One use? Garbage!

MC30? 4 hull? Garbage. (Then I tried to kill Admonition with Lando) Holy crap!

In practice something is about to happen. I just have to play a bunch to figure it all out.

Having been used to GW 40k releases for so long, I am very impressed to see a release for a game that will be relatively cheap to buy, revolutionise all factions in the game, and not simply be a new dominating power-piece that you need to buy 3 of to remain competitive.

I can deal with a slow, small release schedule of this quality. Well played, FFG.

Having been used to GW 40k releases for so long, I am very impressed to see a release for a game that will be relatively cheap to buy, revolutionise all factions in the game, and not simply be a new dominating power-piece that you need to buy 3 of to remain competitive.

I can deal with a slow, small release schedule of this quality. Well played, FFG.

Totally agree. 2 ship releases might not be super exciting, but they help produce a stable, balanced, non-power-crept game.

Everyone lost big. Armada lowered its flag.

Everyone lost big. Armada lowered its flag.

I cannot teach him. The boy has no patience.

I'm hoping my initial assessment is wrong, it just seems that the Gozanti just don't bring enough firepower to be of substantial value (relative to their points, of course) and don't offer better support for the Imperials than the GR75s do for the Rebels.

Gozanti's activate more and offer both better protection and offense to squadrons compared to other imperial options fot the points. The imps in part copped a higher cost because the interaction with rhymers range would be batcrap broken if they were on par with gr75's

I'm hoping my initial assessment is wrong, it just seems that the Gozanti just don't bring enough firepower to be of substantial value (relative to their points, of course) and don't offer better support for the Imperials than the GR75s do for the Rebels.

Not on paper, no. However what is the value of a reroll (bomber command) or comms jammers to a rhymerball?

Gozanti's activate more and offer both better protection and offense to squadrons compared to other imperial options fot the points. The imps in part copped a higher cost because the interaction with rhymers range would be batcrap broken if they were on par with gr75's

With Gozantis I'd consider the extra blue dice on the sides as an extra 0.75 damage shot at ships that get too close for a handful of extra points. In some circumstances that can be (over time) very valuable. In others, not so much.

Indirectly, however, I think Gozantis should be equivalently useful to GR75s insomuch as Imperials don't really need to GIVE UP any special shenanigans to use them as carriers. The only Imperial title with direct synergy for squadrons is the Corrupter VSD, which I don't really see that much anyways. The Gozantis themselves have the Vector upgrade which is appealing for pushing certain kinds of squadrons around, whereas none of the GR75 titles give extra squadron oomph.

Conversely, Rebels have two major titles on "real" ships (Yavaris and Independene) with strong squadron synergy and a secondary meta-dependent title (Gallant Haven) that synergizes with squadrons and tends to be used in conjunction with squadrons. GR75s can certainly assist with running squadrons in a Rebel fleet, but they can't quite overclock squadrons like Independence and/or Yavaris can, and some of the more individually-capable Rebel squadrons (two-dice bombers, super character aces) are designed to be exploited with extra activation shenanigans or pushed further (B-Wings, YT-1300s) with Independence.

The only thing Imperials would really be giving up by assigning Gozantis all their squadron-pusher taskload is the option for Flight Controllers to augment TIEs and the ability to activate more than 4 TIEs at once (2+Expanded Hangar Bays+squadron token) at best. Rebels can (and I'm sure will at least try!) do the same thing, but they give up some of their stronger wave-two-and-earlier synergies doing so.

Tried some in Proxy in a few games today. They do bring some nice new options and some unexpected hardship.