Tried out Fenn last night. . .he is a beast. Turn one, screamed out at a 5 Str, and jousted a Squint. Rolled eyeball and hits, focused it all for 5+1. The TIE never saw it coming, I shot his particles into particles and I cackled in delight at a turn 1 kill.

To which my brother cried, "Seriously??!!"

So, I went through it all for him. . .3 Att, +1 for close range, +1 for Fenn at close range, +1 hit for Fearless Fenn at close range. 6 damage. You only have 3 defense dice?? You're dead, no Saving Throw.

To which he remarked that its is pointless to play older ships against the new wave's power creep.

And I wonder if he is right. I mean, while Fenn's ability requires a (fairly easy) set up, it's the power of a proton torpedo with no TL, and all game repeatable (I made another 1 shot kill later in the game as well.) While "If do right, no can defend" is great for a coming-of-age teen movie, I'm not sure it's so fun in a game.

At this point, beyond Soontir Tokkenschtackken and ships that get an auto-evade (TAP, x7), a ship's only chance at survival is Hull/Shields and "don't get shot/be in arc." While the latter point is certainly valid, it does not feel like Star Wars. . .Poe, Rey and Han Solo do not spend their time "circling around behind," and Wedge takes a TIE/ln out head on. "That was so close it went between my solar panels" is Star Wars excitement, and the "meaning" of a successful Agility roll.

I know some people think that green dice are a bane, and have even suggested they should be removed from play. IMHO, however, I think that is a bad idea. Without green dice, the game becomes even more predictable (and boring); a bit like old school D&D: roll dice, assign damage, when HP = 0, leave game. And I am worried that this game may get to be like old school D&D where Kobolds stand no chance against the 20th level Paladin with a +5 Vorpal Blade. Right now a 1 die attack is considered pointless, and 2 dice nearly so. Somewhere out there is a hypothetical 8 die attack.

It makes me wonder when green dice will catch up.

Which TIE interceptor was this?

they need love like a roast infestation needs extermination

also, green dice are kinda the reason 2-dice attacks are **** useless

Fenn dies quickly to the fickle nature of the green die and to the squad mates of the ship you have at range 1 who are at range 2. He has good agility, but without the auto evade at range 1, he will go down in a joust. A swarm should smash him dead, he will kill 2 most likely, but he will die to focus fire.

Indeed. Fenn is a beast, but a minor mistake can leave him out of range one or arc and ultimately to an an early death. I managed to one shot him with a homing missile/crack shot from Tomax recently.

Fenn is the definition of a glass cannon. He's no Soontir Fel. Especially if he's running fearlessness. If Fenn gets a range one shot on one of your ships and isn't eating returning shots, you've messed up. Especially if he had to boost/barrel roll into range 1. One wrong move and he's gone in one turn as well.

Oh we who enjoy the classic cannon ships all so f$&@ing enjoy FFG's introduction of red dice power-creep.

Which TIE interceptor was this?

Royal Guard + VI

Fenn dies quickly to the fickle nature of the green die and to the squad mates of the ship you have at range 1 who are at range 2. He has good agility, but without the auto evade at range 1, he will go down in a joust. A swarm should smash him dead, he will kill 2 most likely, but he will die to focus fire.

Indeed. Fenn is a beast, but a minor mistake can leave him out of range one or arc and ultimately to an an early death. I managed to one shot him with a homing missile/crack shot from Tomax recently.

Fenn is the definition of a glass cannon. He's no Soontir Fel. Especially if he's running fearlessness. If Fenn gets a range one shot on one of your ships and isn't eating returning shots, you've messed up. Especially if he had to boost/barrel roll into range 1. One wrong move and he's gone in one turn as well.

The point was not how easy Fenn could die, but that anything in his sights stands no chance.

Fenn is an issue offensively that it feels like FFG has been trying to avoid doing for so long then they just dump ALL THE DICE on one ship.

I faced one with adv torps and manaroo wednesday. 6 dice due to his pilot ability for some reason not specifying primary weapon, which EVERY pilot that has a "reroll or add die on attack" and secondary weapon access specifies which one it works on (after attacking being something different). 3 dice modded to focus, which i use adv torps a fair bit so i can say its insanely unlikely to miss more than 3 times before that mod occurs, and add 1 for fearlessness because for some reason that works on aux arcs. Total 7 damage. Oneshotted my tie/sf. Really want my **** hotr techs because a barrelroll after that red would have made me arcdodge him, as he flew too fast to rebound back on me at the angle he came at.

FFG has tried to keep the attack die under 5 for so dang long. Why do you think the Ghost doesnt have an EPT? Because they know 0 agi ships actually are great with Expose, and it would become a nightmare with that. Like in your example, if you simply roll more reds then they have greens you can 1shot so many ships.

Fenn does crumple if you can somehow get a range1 shot on him when he ISNT looking at you. problem is that 2troll or 4k makes him impossible to prevent from rebounding on you. I'd argue that ship is even more nimble than interceptors, ive seen it pull 2trolls in the middle of a dense asteroid cluster and not hit something, which i was blocking a 4k because i was sure a 2troll would clip a rock.

On one hand, im not facing Dengar literally every match now so thats good. Problem is now its worse as Fenn does just as much (if not more) damage than Dengar does only in ONE SHOT and he has the maneuverability to get it consistently.

If he takes fearlessness, he only has one action. If he takes PtL, he is now locked out of that amazing Troll. If hes at range one of your ships, he should be at range one of at least one other of yours, prepped for a revenge shot.

Seems like what most people are failing to understand is that the fang is a JOUSTING ship. It wants to be in your face. You need to not let it. Make it so fen has to boost to get that range one.

He is by all means a nasty ship, but he is also very killable if our flown or out gunned.

Manaroo.

He does not only have 1 action.

Manaroo.

He does not only have 1 action.

You now have 60+ points tied up, so you better be ready to have 60 points ready to fight him. Which isn't hard when you aren't fighting in a best situation vacuum.

Fenn dies quickly to the fickle nature of the green die and to the squad mates of the ship you have at range 1 who are at range 2. He has good agility, but without the auto evade at range 1, he will go down in a joust. A swarm should smash him dead, he will kill 2 most likely, but he will die to focus fire.

Indeed. Fenn is a beast, but a minor mistake can leave him out of range one or arc and ultimately to an an early death. I managed to one shot him with a homing missile/crack shot from Tomax recently.

Fenn is the definition of a glass cannon. He's no Soontir Fel. Especially if he's running fearlessness. If Fenn gets a range one shot on one of your ships and isn't eating returning shots, you've messed up. Especially if he had to boost/barrel roll into range 1. One wrong move and he's gone in one turn as well.

The point was not how easy Fenn could die, but that anything in his sights stands no chance.

I think people are missing the point about Fenn, it's massive risk versus great reward. If you are stupid and split your ships and allow a top tier Ace to hunt and kill lone ships, that is not FFG's fault.

Fenn has 0 shields and doesnt have an evade unless the title procs one. I think people complaining about how he flies should be focusing on more how they are flying against him.

That was more the point I was trying to get at. He throws a disgusting amount of dice, but if you play accordingly he can go down very easily.

And I wonder if he is right. I mean, while Fenn's ability requires a (fairly easy) set up, it's the power of a proton torpedo with no TL, and all game repeatable (I made another 1 shot kill later in the game as well.) While "If do right, no can defend" is great for a coming-of-age teen movie, I'm not sure it's so fun in a game.

At this point, beyond Soontir Tokkenschtackken and ships that get an auto-evade (TAP, x7), a ship's only chance at survival is Hull/Shields and "don't get shot/be in arc." While the latter point is certainly valid, it does not feel like Star Wars. . .Poe, Rey and Han Solo do not spend their time "circling around behind," and Wedge takes a TIE/ln out head on. "That was so close it went between my solar panels" is Star Wars excitement, and the "meaning" of a successful Agility roll.

...

It makes me wonder when green dice will catch up.

First off, I love the term Tokkenschtackken. First time hearing it and it's funny to me.

To be "Fenn Rau'ed" is now a verb in my book.

Next, I agree that red dice modification has vastly overshadowed green dice modification in this game. There are very few things that help out green dice. Elusive is not a good EPT. So, I do think there is an imbalance between red and green dice that is rather stark.

I do think that there is a distinct game balance between certain ships in the game. It's not always the older vs. the newer, though there are a lot more newer ships that are more "competitive". There are at least two tiers of ships in this game. There is the tier of ship that you would take to a major event and expect to do well with. Then, there is the rest of them that just can't cut it in a major tournament. Some ships are just such a power level above the rest of them.

I usually play casual games and missions and I have a lot of fun flying all the regular ships and generics. To me, that's more of what X-wing is. Just last night I played Rainbow Dash w/ Norra for the first time. It was my first time with Rainbow Dash. The enemy list went for Norra and was able to smash her with Fenn Rau, but Rainbow Dash then just won me the game. He was so powerful that it really wasn't even a game at that point. I was around behind him and there wasn't anything he could do about it. He would never get me in arc again and I just smash him. I kind of felt dirty using it and I didn't really have fun as the whole challenge of it was gone. It was like playing on easy level.

I forget what podcast it was (west coast one) that said, "If it's not broken, you don't fly it". Maybe it was Back to Dials? Well, I get their point. The idea is that there is a certain power level and if your ship isn't in that bracket, it's not going to be flown competitively. The latest power creep just makes it worse. Things like Royal Guard Pilot just don't have a place in that top tier level of the game.

Fenn is powerful, but I have to go and say that not knowing his ability completely changes how you play. In your example, there are several things I see wrong. First, your opponent is not playing a particularly powerful ship. RGP with just VI is, well, kinda lame. And with Fenn being PS9, the 23pt RGP might as well have been an 18pt Alpha. The lack of PTL on the interceptor prevents the token stack that should have saved his life, as well as the lack of SD for the extra defense dice to start with. But more importantly than that - your brother doesn't appear to have ever played against Fenn before, or even know what his ability actually is. I guarantee you that he would fly differently knowing that R1 is a death trap. Fenn is very powerful at R1, obnoxious at R3, but crumbles at R2. And if he wasn't supported by Manny, then there's only a 23% chance of rolling all hits/eyes. If he was supported by Manny, then you're paying SERIOUS points for that one shot ability, and your brother needed to ensure that the rest of his squad would make Fenn pay for that shot.

But discounting your specific scenario, and bringing up the question of power creep in X wing... I would say that overall ships have been getting more powerful, but that's a good thing. X wings now have IA giving them essentially an extra shield for 1 point, /x1 now has a free system slot or a super awesome 1pt ATC, Y wings have the TLT, etc... These are all things that the ships did not originally have, and therefore you can state are more powerful today than they used to be. But power creep itself is not a bad thing, it keeps the game from getting stale. Power creep can become a bad thing when it is used as a marketing gimmick to force new purchases, obsoleting previous purchases. FFG is not doing that - they're spending plenty of resources to ensure that old content is still viable by making them more powerful, while still producing new content. This keeps the game fresh, and prevents a single powerful build from ALWAYS being dominant.

TL;DR, yes, there's a power creep. No, it's not a bad thing.

If Fenn is facing you in range 1 you might as well not even bother attacking him.

4 green dice + 1 auto evade from title.

Oddly enough the only time ive ever landed damage on him (as in more than 1 random hit) was at range 3, despite having autos. In fact i made one guy rather salty when i landed a 3die hit at range3, he needed to roll 2 natural evades since he had no focus so his autos would save him. He rolled 2 evades....and 2 focus lol. Autos didnt work, so he took that crit and died.

If Fenn is facing you in range 1 you might as well not even bother attacking him.

4 green dice + 1 auto evade from title.

so...1 evade, then?

Dice are dice and the best laid plans fail to the roll of the dice. The greatest victories come from the dice. I have rolled two dice and got criticals against someone rolling 6 dice and getting blanks blowing his ship up it was epic

Whisper was in wave four right? Four dice primary, five at range one on a small ship with crazy repositioning, action economy, and solid defense. (VI, FCS, ACD and crew of your choice)

Fenn is great fun to fly, I've been playing him in every squad I've put on the table since wave nine released. He is still pretty fragile and extremely vulnerable to criticals.

If he is running Fearlessness go for the block, don't joust him on purpose. Have the other ships in your list set up for range two shots.

If he is running PtL remember that they don't have that many green maneuvers, all of the two speeds and the three straight. He can't run away very well when stressed like an Interceptor, TAP, or A-Wing. The stress also blocks his T-rolls and k-turn which are bread and butter for the Fang to stay up close in fights.

Fenn lives at ranges three and one. If you can catch him with more than one shot at range two he is very likely to take damage and he doesn't have shields to stop criticals.

Which TIE interceptor was this?

Royal Guard + VI

VI Royal Guards are terrible. I'm not surprised Fenn won against that. Interceptors need high PS and PTL to stay alive, either by arc dodging or token turtling.

If Fenn is facing you in range 1 you might as well not even bother attacking him.

4 green dice + 1 auto evade from title.

so...1 evade, then?

I just read through this whole thread ... before getting to this post. I had just taken a big swig from my soda, read this post, and nearly spewed it all onto my keyboard.

I have some serious medical issues, and don't get the chance to laugh too often these days.

Well played sir. And thank you so much for brightening my day !!!

Your brother shouldn't be mad at you, he should be mad at himself. Interceptors aren't jousters. And they definitely shouldn't be unwise enough to joust the King of the Fangs.

....bringing up the question of power creep in X wing... I would say that overall ships have been getting more powerful, but that's a good thing. X wings now have IA giving them essentially an extra shield for 1 point, /x1 now has a free system slot or a super awesome 1pt ATC, Y wings have the TLT, etc... These are all things that the ships did not originally have, and therefore you can state are more powerful today than they used to be. But power creep itself is not a bad thing, it keeps the game from getting stale. Power creep can become a bad thing when it is used as a marketing gimmick to force new purchases, obsoleting previous purchases. FFG is not doing that - they're spending plenty of resources to ensure that old content is still viable by making them more powerful, while still producing new content.

I agree....yes as the X-wing has gotten IA and other ships have gotten some bumps, but I disagree, power-creep is about sales. If not, there is no **** way they would have designed the Jumpmaster the way they did. And there are other recent ships -like the Protectorate- and other ships that seem so...very...desperate to be sold/purchased.

I get it, it's a business; if FFG issued ships that weren't up to taking out existing ships better than older releases, then who would buy them? Well, there are people who watch Rebels I guess, haha. But my real beef is the new mod cards that give cannon ships that weren't very maneuverable, more maneuvering characteristics that seem to go against logic and cannon. Case in point: X-wings are not very maneuverable but have shielding and can carry ordinance. There has been pushes to make them fly like TIEs without giving TIEs inverse characteristics to shield up and carry ordinance (which would be dumb) Like Vectored Thrusters; I just don't get FFG's incessant recent need to attempt to make every faction and ship fly similarly and shoot the same.

Soon they will have to change their original opening line from:

"Take control of powerful Rebel X-wings and nimble Imperial TIE fighters!"

to

"Take control of not so powerful but overpriced nimble Rebel X-wings and cheap nimble glass-cannon TIE fighters! Or, forget that and fly a super cheap, nimble, uber-powerful ship that no one has ever seen in a Star Wars movie that simply out-flies and tears all ships you remember to pieces! Yay money!"