In my other posts, I have thrown out for discussion that Rhymer and Demo are good for the game (at the current meta)... I believe there are counters to them and they are not "auto-win" tools.

Let's talk TRCs (I started a separate thread so we can remain on topic)...

I would argue that every shot by a Corvette guarantees 2-3 damage. This is damage akin to bombers that really negates defense tokens through shot quantity. A death by a thousand cuts? I would argue that this is the Rebel equivalent of the RhymerBall.

Sorry for the clickbait/inflammatory title... I'm not sure anything is OP (yet) in the game (it's really matchups and the path to the final four)...

Of course, there are counters to TRCs too... :-)

Clone, sorry, I'm not good at finding quotes so I want to give you a citation.

No. Red dice are so fickle, I think the Rebels need some consistency in damage output. Without them, the only way to apply damage consistently is to get into Blue/Black range and the Imperials just dominate that range combined with some piss poor defensive options on ships that deal damage at that range.

I Dont know if they are over powered but the way they synergise with the rebel ships that rock multiple evade tokens, especially in non-Mon Mothma lists that get in close enough to no longer need the evades for defence (eg Zombie Riekan lists) is starting to make me question this very subject.

Maybe if you had to exhaust the card to flip to the double hit/crit facing then they may not be such a must-have upgrade?

I think TRCs are very powerful against ships that don't have evades, and redundant evades are better against them. Since Imperial players tend to lean more toward ISD/VSDs for carriers and Demolisher for Demolisher, they don't tend to have a ton of evades, and that makes sense because predominantly Imperial players are the ones who talk about them being OP the most. I don't think they are OP, I think they are a Rebel answer for what is popular in the current meta. There is a cost for it above the points, trading defense for offense, so I think it is fair. I COULD see the argument as it being similar to Screed, being only once per activation, but I still don't think it is necessary. Essentially this is the rebel version of Screed that is better due to being able to use it twice in one activation and also not needing to spend a die, but let's be honest, your red die pool is likely to have more than one blank in it, so the effect is similar.

Once wave 3 hits, TRCs will still be awesome, but Imperials need not worry about them as much, since Gozantis can push squadrons and evade and scatter and one Goznti can exaust an evade, limiting the utility of the evades.

Opinion: There are LESSER upgrades that have to be exhausted on use. I use TRCs ALOT. DrunkTarkin even sang a song about it one night before a store championship somewhere in Vermont...

Anyway, I digress. As an avid user, I could see these being an exaust on use. But not both exaust on use AND Evade expenditure. That being said, I feel TRCs have been an exclusive addition to the Rebel faction...so far.

I am of the opinion that nothing is really currently overpowered.

I believe most of the issues concerning the discussions are more related to the fact that there aren't tons and tons of choices for both factions. So on the Imperial side you WILL see a Demolisher and Rhymer many times. On the rebel side, TRCs are just to good on CR90s. You need to find room for them.

My point on the other thread was that there is way too much hate for Demo and Rhymer, while TRCs are rarely discussed. I pretty much see them as much as I see Rhymer and Demo.

On the imperial side of things I've run

VSD1 w/TRC & Cpt Needa

in my last few games and its a good combo for helping the old warhorse up its damage output.

Of course you do have to pay those precious 2 extra points for the evade

Ohhh. . . So, fr my experience, TRC's allow a rebel player to play the long game. They can go fast, stay at distance and do what they need to do to stay out of range. This is important because if just rolling red dice, a rebel player would not be able to take down ships consistently, no matter how many he/she used to focus with.

This means that the rebels have a consistent form of damage but if they lose even 1 ship they will take a HUGE hit to that output. Couple that with the fact that you are trading defense for offense and you have a balance.

There are tactics to get around TRC's. I use Intel Officer in DtO. You force them to use an evade if they haven't already then you hit the other evade with Intel Officer. The MC30 and CR90 can only take so much damage before they have to evade so you are either pushing damage through or you are killing off both offense and defense.

Similar, you can just focus those ships down till they have to kill those evades. If you start before they activate, they will lose some offense just to stay alive.

With flotillas coming out, TRC's will be weaker. A scatter AND evade! Yeesh. The only CR90's that won't be hurting will the ones in Home One range with Ackbar but they will still have issues with one of the defense tokens.

Personally, I don't think TRCs are overpowered. You have to exhaust one of the tokens CR90s rely upon to survive. So if you want to double-arc with your CR90, you now have two red Evades. So if I take some shots at said ship and Accuracy your Redirect, next turn you can only trigger TRCs once and if you suffer more fire, your Evades are gone. And then you're going to have a bad time.

I think the combination of good maneuvering and TRCs is what makes them seem OP. A player who knows how to use them very, very well can position just right to fire and maneuver away, covering for the weakness of TRCs I mentioned above. But TRCs are not a plug-and-play easy button that you can punch to win the game. I was trying to show a new player how frustrating they can be, but I don't field CR90 fleets, so I flew one right off the board (it didn't help that we were on a 3' x 3'). They're definitely good, but not OP.

Oh, and the reason Imperial players think of them as OP are twofold:

1) Imperials suffer from a lack of red dice, so CR90s spending Evades and dancing at Long Range is incredibly frustrating. Unless you have a lot of bombers, there's little you can do to chase down ships that can strike from max range and just sweep around you if you manage to get close. And I'm not saying this is a bad thing. It's balanced by the fact that almost every Rebel ship is in serious trouble if it closes with an Imperial fleet, because Imperials have three ships toting Black dice to the Rebel's one.

2) They can't make effective use of the upgrade. First, it can only go on a VSD or ISD. Second, you can only use it if you take Captain Needa, which means no Intel Officer or any other officer upgrade on that ship. And now you're paying nine points to flip one die to double-damage or crit, taking up two valuable slots on a ship that can put out a LOT of damage without those upgrades. An ISD-II doesn't need it, because it generally throws enough Accuracies to lock out all of your opponent's Defense tokens, and an ISD-I doesn't really need it because it can close against most targets quickly, and dish out a lot of hurt with its dice combination. I find XI-7s or HTTs to be better uses for the ISD turbolaser slot, and the Needa/TRC combo bars both of those for a gimmick. Keeping more damage in the target area with XI-7s is way more cost effective than bumping damage by one or two, IMO.

TRC is a 9 point card with Imperials as they have to have Captain Needa to really use it on any ship over than gladiators, and eventually Gozanti assault configurations.

That said I sure like it.

TRC is a 9 point card with Imperials as they have to have Captain Needa to really use it on any ship over than gladiators, and eventually Gozanti assault configurations.

That said I sure like it.

Yeah, thank goodness Gozntis don't have turbo lasers. That would be terrifying.

Its very strong on a few ships, a solid choice on a couple others, and simply cannot be taken on a few more. I don't think its OP, because its pretty fairly costed in terms of points and on use drawback.

I do think they are practically auto include on cr90a's though, so I dunno if maybe that should be considered an issue.

TRC is a 9 point card with Imperials as they have to have Captain Needa to really use it on any ship over than gladiators, and eventually Gozanti assault configurations.

That said I sure like it.

Yeah, thank goodness Gozntis don't have turbo lasers. That would be terrifying.

I use Needa and TRCs on my ISDII and frankly I love it. The evade works very well to help mitigate rebel TRC incoming and when shooting that little modification can make as big a difference on a bigger die pool as on a smaller one (pushing that 1 extra damage through a brace at long range can mean the difference between a dead ship and not eventually). I know it doesn't look that good on paper, but in practice the evade can neuter some fickle red dice at key times and if/when you close I have had the TRC flip literally be the difference between killing a ship and not (usually after bombers have depleted shields). Yeah XI7s can be better in some cases but I like taking Needa for the evade in ANY case and I got tired of throwing 4 red dice at corvettes and having them total like 3 damage evaded down to 1.

Are TRCs OP? in general, no, but they can be abused. Frankly CR90s are one of the most PPD efficient ships in the game and combining that with enhanced survivability (mothma, Reikaan) AND activation advantage can make TRC90s serious business.

The main issue here isn't a couple of TRC ships, its when all of these things are combined and min/maxed, If you have a 7 activation fleet you are guaranteed to have a couple of extra activations on any fleet meaning your trc90s will generally feel free to use those evades to TRC on both arcs without fear of repercussion..

It's a bit of a cheese tactic (as most min/max tactics are), but I've seen these sorts of fleets eat things alive and they don't care if they go first or second as there are several nasty objectives that make them even worse. it's definitely a fleet that is on my list of things to try if I ever get to play a game outside of a tournament...which never seems to happen.

Love the constructive comments everybody!

If Corvettes are burning evades to TRC... maybe we'll have to start a discussion that "accuracy" is OP'ed. :-D

If the intention is to create as many fanciful scenarios in which multiple incongruous items and effects are declared "OP" in such a way that the waters on the subject are so muddied that nothing can definitively be declared "OP" correctly forever and for all time.

Then yes.

I support this means to that end.

I'll just do my best to ignore every subject until its done.

TRC is a 9 point card with Imperials as they have to have Captain Needa to really use it on any ship over than gladiators, and eventually Gozanti assault configurations.

That said I sure like it.

Yeah, thank goodness Gozntis don't have turbo lasers. That would be terrifying.

Quite right. I'd forgotten that. I do think I might be interested in the Needa TRC on the Interdictor though. I don't think it needs double contain's, and having this on the Indicator would give it a source of constant predictable damage for fairly low battery strength.

TRC is a 9 point card with Imperials as they have to have Captain Needa to really use it on any ship over than gladiators, and eventually Gozanti assault configurations.

That said I sure like it.

Yeah, thank goodness Gozntis don't have turbo lasers. That would be terrifying.

Quite right. I'd forgotten that. I do think I might be interested in the Needa TRC on the Interdictor though. I don't think it needs double contain's, and having this on the Indicator would give it a source of constant predictable damage for fairly low battery strength.

That being said, I think there might be more battery-increasing upgrades coming (spinal something or other).

TRC is a 9 point card with Imperials as they have to have Captain Needa to really use it on any ship over than gladiators, and eventually Gozanti assault configurations.

That said I sure like it.

Yeah, thank goodness Gozntis don't have turbo lasers. That would be terrifying.

Quite right. I'd forgotten that. I do think I might be interested in the Needa TRC on the Interdictor though. I don't think it needs double contain's, and having this on the Indicator would give it a source of constant predictable damage for fairly low battery strength.

I hadn't thought of that, it seems like a fairly good place to put it. Of course, we don't actually know that the Interdictor has a turbolaser slot, since none of the upgrade cards we have seen are for the slot.

yeah, I agree. Needa + TRC on an Interdictor would be a match made in Imperial heaven, which I imagine is just a grey, metal-panelled room with lots of terminals and lights and adorable tiny black droids bumping around.

I counter propose.

Intel Officers are OP.

They force ships to discard evades or not use TRC's altogether. Its not fair.

This does highlight the issue with TRC's, we havent worked out many reliable methods of forcing the offending ship to discard evade tokens. Added diversity will enable that.

All TRC's actually do, is choose a dice which the defender will evade, thus bypassing the evade with the original roll. Its a reliable method of making sure some damage at long range gets through.

All TRC's actually do, is choose a dice which the defender will evade, thus bypassing the evade with the original roll. Its a reliable method of making sure some damage at long range gets through.

Until the number of TRC shots is higher then the number of evades.

I counter propose.

Intel Officers are OP.

They force ships to discard evades or not use TRC's altogether. Its not fair.

This does highlight the issue with TRC's, we havent worked out many reliable methods of forcing the offending ship to discard evade tokens. Added diversity will enable that.

All TRC's actually do, is choose a dice which the defender will evade, thus bypassing the evade with the original roll. Its a reliable method of making sure some damage at long range gets through.

This is true. It is also true that Imperial ships are at an evade disadvantage. And it is also why I have been surprised and delighted at my TRC ISDII. An opponent is far more likely to be willing to end up in front arc when its "only" long range and the TRC guarantees a reduced return on evades (this also becomes relevant as I am usually also sending rhymer bombers in the exact same activation and it reduces the likelihood that they will force rerolls knowing a TRC powered long range shot is coming) and unlike other upgrades it will help even if your red dice are fickle.

When facing imperial lists, the general lack of evades plays nicely, and when you actually DO get a concentrate fire, full front arc it normalizes the damage output OR allows a double arc to have a much more telling effect, yes XI7 can do the damage thing maybe better IF YOU ROLL WELL but it also doesn't play in defense (allows you to more confidently play second, which is my preference, when you can feel more comfortable moving into long range first)

I counter propose.

Intel Officers are OP.

They force ships to discard evades or not use TRC's altogether. Its not fair.

This does highlight the issue with TRC's, we havent worked out many reliable methods of forcing the offending ship to discard evade tokens. Added diversity will enable that.

All TRC's actually do, is choose a dice which the defender will evade, thus bypassing the evade with the original roll. Its a reliable method of making sure some damage at long range gets through.

I said that last page

TRC's are indeed strong but they are on fragile platforms. If you have ships like Suppressor coming in and exhausting evades, it will hurt.

Let's see how the current Vassal tournament turns out eh?