I know a lot of people like you're brother, and they drive me kinda crazy:

Player A has no idea what Card X does.

Player A flies a suboptimal build that wasn't even good four waves ago (e.g. RGP+VI)

I think this just highlights the difference between casual gamers and tournament gamers.

The only real red die creep as far as i can see is torp scouts.

OK....you have got to be kidding, right? Fenn Rau at R1 with Fearlessness isn't red die creep? The first non-epic ship that can get 6 hits through in one shot? OK...Phantoms and the Ghost could take Expose and do it before, but let's be realistic here. The first competitive ship that can do it.

Forgive my insolence, but I feel like I also have to point out that it's also a ship with only 4 Hull, minimal action economy (if you take Fearlessness you have to take Manaroo for any action economy, and that's kinda like a 30 point upgrade on Fenn), and no autothrusters or arc-dodging if you want to be triggering Fearlessness.

Saying that he's "red die power creep" with Fearlessness is trivially true if you just mean that he can get access to 6 red dice via Fearlessness and his ability. But you probably mean to say that Fenn Rau both has this potential AND THAT that many red dice on this platform of ship are too good and power creep past other ships. I'm not nearly convinced of this yet. Consider that you could run Expose+Corran+JanOrs back in Wave 4 for a 6-Die and a 5-Die attack in the same turn. But just because you could do it didn't mean it was broken or too good. The jury is still out as to whether or not Fenn Rau will prove too good just because he has the capability to throw six dice. There are a lot of costs in opportunity loss to get those 6 Red dice, and they may well more than balance it out.

I know I play at a different...level...of play than a good number of people on these forums. I agree that Corran + Expose + Jan Ors makes 6 dice possible, yet not very realistic. I do think that Fenn Rau with Fearlessness is a lot more viable than that. I understand that many people here are considering the high tables at Worlds and what you expect to see and only the very best players who have played all the various combos. Or maybe even your local game store is full of Regional and National champions who play at a higher game level than most X-wing gamers. For me....playing in my local game store...I think Fenn Rau with Fearlessness is viable enough to be considered. Oh, maybe it's not the most optimal build in existence, but for the people that I play against it is viable enough. I think that's the case for most X-wingers, as well.

I know a lot of people like you're brother, and they drive me kinda crazy:

Player A has no idea what Card X does.

Player A flies a suboptimal build that wasn't even good four waves ago (e.g. RGP+VI)

I think this just highlights the difference between casual gamers and tournament gamers.

The only real red die creep as far as i can see is torp scouts.

OK....you have got to be kidding, right? Fenn Rau at R1 with Fearlessness isn't red die creep? The first non-epic ship that can get 6 hits through in one shot? OK...Phantoms and the Ghost could take Expose and do it before, but let's be realistic here. The first competitive ship that can do it.

Fearlessness only works if you give Fenn the joust he wants and why would you do that? Unless you are flying a single ship list then you should be able to flank him with something else because you know where he is trying to go with Fearlessness equipped.

Fearlessness is kind of cool, but the range and arc restrictions make it tough to pull off against an opponent who knows how it works which only takes reading the card.

It isn't any worse than Miranda missiles, Bossk Crackshot missiles, or N'dru stim missiles. You can do it multiple times in a match, but you will be hard pressed to pull it off more than once against someone who knows how it works. Pulling it off once ain't gonna be easy, having Fearlessness telegraphs where he wants to be and there are plenty ships perfectly capable of blocking his move.

I'd also argue that the Phantom is worse, specifically Whisper, who gets four dice primary, system slot, crew slot, and ACD. She can push damage through at any range especially once Fire Control System kicks in and she has her prey perpetually target locked. The VCX ain't no slouch either. I am really hating those things. Four attack dice, system slot, large base for blocking, amazing crew options, and it can take a turret to cover its a$$.

I'd recommend flying Fenn Rau yourself for a few games. If your opponents don't understand how he works then yes he will burn down ships with ease but that is true of a lot of ship builds in X-Wing, and a lot of those aren't competitive.

Fearlessness only works if you give Fenn the joust he wants and why would you do that? Unless you are flying a single ship list then you should be able to flank him with something else because you know where he is trying to go with Fearlessness equipped.

Fearlessness is kind of cool, but the range and arc restrictions make it tough to pull off against an opponent who knows how it works which only takes reading the card.

It isn't any worse than Miranda missiles, Bossk Crackshot missiles, or N'dru stim missiles. You can do it multiple times in a match, but you will be hard pressed to pull it off more than once against someone who knows how it works. Pulling it off once ain't gonna be easy, having Fearlessness telegraphs where he wants to be and there are plenty ships perfectly capable of blocking his move.

I'd also argue that the Phantom is worse, specifically Whisper, who gets four dice primary, system slot, crew slot, and ACD. She can push damage through at any range especially once Fire Control System kicks in and she has her prey perpetually target locked. The VCX ain't no slouch either. I am really hating those things. Four attack dice, system slot, large base for blocking, amazing crew options, and it can take a turret to cover its a$$.

I'd recommend flying Fenn Rau yourself for a few games. If your opponents don't understand how he works then yes he will burn down ships with ease but that is true of a lot of ship builds in X-Wing, and a lot of those aren't competitive.

A good player can also use a blocker to get you into a spot where Fenn Rau will be able to hit you at R1. So, it's not just "you see it coming and get out of the way". It is possible for someone to get you. Of course, you can just counter with "well, I would see the block coming and not be there". Still, you get the general idea that sometimes you might not be able to help it. Everything is situational.

As for the Miranda/Bossk/N'dru comparisons, I am not really arguing that it's worse than them. It's just more of the same. Being able to get a huge amount of red dice in one throw is becoming less of a rare item and more common place. So, that is red dice creep to me.

As for anything about the Tie Phantom being worse, I will never argue with that! I freakin' hate that ship. I consider it the worst addition to the game of all time, even with the nerf. I think it should've been 3 red dice, and not 4.

Yeah, Torp Scouts ARE power creep personified; we don't allow them in games at all, be it homes or at the LGS; I bring a baseball bat.

Fine, you can use whatever game mechanics you want to say the Fenn is not the best, he's killable, it was a lucky shot, etc. But 6 freakin' dice? From a starfighter?? PTorps are 6 dice and are used to blow up Death Stars and capital ships. Capital ship primary weapons are 4 dice. The whole flipping thing seems out of scale with the rest of the game. Where did Fenn buy the turbolaser and how did he install it on his ship??

Am I being trolled right now? People like this don't actually exist, right?

And I guess that was some of my fear. . .is it getting to the point where there are 2 classes of ships: the competitive ones, that you play to win, and the rest, that you play to have fun.

Yep. That's it, really. Personally, I wouldn't frame it in win or fun. I put it at tournament level / casual. When I play casually, I play to win.

There is the level of game you bring to a tournament. There is a certain power level you need to be at to compete. Many pilots just can't compete at that level and you are looking at a small bracket of lists/ships that you will see at events. The rest just can't cut the mustard against firepower of this magnitude. OK...not really firepower. More "combo-ness". You need to have token stacks to really be effective.

Well, sure, I loved winning. And I loved getting the drop on my bro with a shiny new ship.

But a mid-PS Squint should not be fish-in-a-barrel fodder without range 3, arc-dodged, stacked tokens. Green dice should mean something if they are part of the game.

Or, every low-level ship may as well be flow by Admiral Akbar

What?

Squints have ALWAYS been fish in a barrel if you actually get tokenless shots on them. I mean, they literally have less defenses than a TIE Fighter. You have to rely on their arc dodging (which means the high PS ones) or fortressing up in the rare case they have a shot to make them not melt.

I know I play at a different...level...of play than a good number of people on these forums. I agree that Corran + Expose + Jan Ors makes 6 dice possible, yet not very realistic. I do think that Fenn Rau with Fearlessness is a lot more viable than that. I understand that many people here are considering the high tables at Worlds and what you expect to see and only the very best players who have played all the various combos. Or maybe even your local game store is full of Regional and National champions who play at a higher game level than most X-wing gamers. For me....playing in my local game store...I think Fenn Rau with Fearlessness is viable enough to be considered. Oh, maybe it's not the most optimal build in existence, but for the people that I play against it is viable enough. I think that's the case for most X-wingers, as well.

"Level." Rolled all Evades on that one

Fenn Rau rocks. His ship is easy to fly, and in an Epic environ, there are lots of targets to line up on. And since he goes first, they die, no Saving Throw. With CDP he evades nicely, too. He's a little fragile, but to me seems like the "Soontir" that can imbalance Epic the way the real Soontir imbalances 100 pt. Which probably means he doesn't suck in 100/6 either.

I think this just highlights the difference between casual gamers and tournament gamers.

Fearlessness only works if you give Fenn the joust he wants and why would you do that? Unless you are flying a single ship list then you should be able to flank him with something else because you know where he is trying to go with Fearlessness equipped.

Fearlessness is kind of cool, but the range and arc restrictions make it tough to pull off against an opponent who knows how it works which only takes reading the card.

See above.

Fine, you can use whatever game mechanics you want to say the Fenn is not the best, he's killable, it was a lucky shot, etc. But 6 freakin' dice? From a starfighter?? PTorps are 6 dice and are used to blow up Death Stars and capital ships. Capital ship primary weapons are 4 dice. The whole flipping thing seems out of scale with the rest of the game. Where did Fenn buy the turbolaser and how did he install it on his ship??

Am I being trolled right now? People like this don't actually exist, right?

No, you're not being trolled. But since I exist and I wrote that, you're kinda *issing me off.

If your brother was silly enough to joust with Fenn Rau then he deserved the education he got. You have to look at what is on the other side of the table from you and decide how best to maximize your strengths while minimizing your opponent's strengths.

OK, so the point is not that my bro is an uneducated idiot and I stuffed it to him big time. The point is, that as the game stands, there is nothing he could do to save his ship. He had no idea that this game has gotten into 6 die primary attacks--it used to be that a proton torpedo was a MAJOR attack, requiring range 1, a TL, and a focus to make it happen.. And if the game continues to Attack die power creep, it is going to become very lop-sided.

I mean, this is still false. Let's not forget your Fenn had less than a 25% chance of even rolling five hits on his attack with only a Focus. Nevertheless, he could have:

(1) Not jousted with Fenn, instead turning away and stretching Fenn out on a chase which both makes it difficult to Fenn to get into R1 and allows the rest of his ships to potentially flank Fenn

(2) Approached more slowly, to force Fenn to fight at R2 or R3 or spend his action boosting into R1 instead of Focus-ing

(3) He could have Evaded for his action (6-(3+1)=2, which means chance of survival.

(4) He could augmented his chance at survival (3) by using PtL and Palpatine to greatly increase the chance he has F+E+Palp

(5) He could have ran Soontir Fel + Stealth + PTL instead of RGP, which would actually give him an incredible chance to either arc-dodge Fenn if he doesn't have initiative or to shoot first and perhaps strip Fenn's focus token if he does have initiative. Furthermore, Soontir+Stealth+Palp+FFE has a very real chance of only taking a single damage from Fenn's god-roll (4+1=5).

All of these things would have greatly reduced the chance his interceptor (be in RGP or Fel) could have avoided that automatic one-shot.

Not tryin' to be a jerk, just sayin' ...

Yes x5. He was ill-prepared for a Fenn-tastic roll. But are 6 die primary attacks the wave of the future? Or, now that we have 6 dice, does Wave 11 need a 7 die attack to maintain the power of kewl?

Miranda can already roll 7 dice APTs (5 + Jan + Miranda), as well as Norra and Shara. And come HotR, the VCX, which already had 5 dice primaries at R1, can now get 7 dice primaries at R1 (5 + Jan + Finn)...

But will any of that be competitive? Doubtful. Jan has been around since W3 and has only blipped once on the competitive meta by a single list (iirc it was Super Dash + 42pt Jan). APTs I don't think have ever been in a competitive list... And while Finn could be potent, there are enough restrictions to keep him from being over powered. The adding a blank means you need to have a reroll ability ready to go, then there's the crew slot opportunity cost, followed by the 5 point cost, which is third only to Luke and Palp.

Edit: Oh, and I just read about the new unspoiled cards for HotR... so now if it's obstructed, you can roll ANOTHER die. So while that's not going to increase anyone's total count (they could have taken Opportunist before), it will increase the quantity of people rolling more dice.

And I guess that was some of my fear. . .is it getting to the point where there are 2 classes of ships: the competitive ones, that you play to win, and the rest, that you play to have fun.

Yep. That's it, really. Personally, I wouldn't frame it in win or fun. I put it at tournament level / casual. When I play casually, I play to win.

There is the level of game you bring to a tournament. There is a certain power level you need to be at to compete. Many pilots just can't compete at that level and you are looking at a small bracket of lists/ships that you will see at events. The rest just can't cut the mustard against firepower of this magnitude. OK...not really firepower. More "combo-ness". You need to have token stacks to really be effective.

Well, sure, I loved winning. And I loved getting the drop on my bro with a shiny new ship.

But a mid-PS Squint should not be fish-in-a-barrel fodder without range 3, arc-dodged, stacked tokens. Green dice should mean something if they are part of the game.

Or, every low-level ship may as well be flow by Admiral Akbar

What?

Squints have ALWAYS been fish in a barrel if you actually get tokenless shots on them. I mean, they literally have less defenses than a TIE Fighter. You have to rely on their arc dodging (which means the high PS ones) or fortressing up in the rare case they have a shot to make them not melt.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But back in the day there were less Large ships and they had a "powerful" attack roll of 3 dice.

They are my favorite ship, but I really don't play them much because the pop way too easily in Epic, and like I said, staying at Range 3 seems cheesy.

I really don't expect all ships to be equal; in fact, I expect that as more ships enter the game, more ships are going to be squeezed out the back end of the meta. It's the "distance" between Fenn and a HWK that means that the ships cannot coexist on a table, even casually.

If your brother was silly enough to joust with Fenn Rau then he deserved the education he got. You have to look at what is on the other side of the table from you and decide how best to maximize your strengths while minimizing your opponent's strengths.

OK, so the point is not that my bro is an uneducated idiot and I stuffed it to him big time. The point is, that as the game stands, there is nothing he could do to save his ship. He had no idea that this game has gotten into 6 die primary attacks--it used to be that a proton torpedo was a MAJOR attack, requiring range 1, a TL, and a focus to make it happen.. And if the game continues to Attack die power creep, it is going to become very lop-sided.

I mean, this is still false. Let's not forget your Fenn had less than a 25% chance of even rolling five hits on his attack with only a Focus. Nevertheless, he could have:

(1) Not jousted with Fenn, instead turning away and stretching Fenn out on a chase which both makes it difficult to Fenn to get into R1 and allows the rest of his ships to potentially flank Fenn

(2) Approached more slowly, to force Fenn to fight at R2 or R3 or spend his action boosting into R1 instead of Focus-ing

(3) He could have Evaded for his action (6-(3+1)=2, which means chance of survival.

(4) He could augmented his chance at survival (3) by using PtL and Palpatine to greatly increase the chance he has F+E+Palp

(5) He could have ran Soontir Fel + Stealth + PTL instead of RGP, which would actually give him an incredible chance to either arc-dodge Fenn if he doesn't have initiative or to shoot first and perhaps strip Fenn's focus token if he does have initiative. Furthermore, Soontir+Stealth+Palp+FFE has a very real chance of only taking a single damage from Fenn's god-roll (4+1=5).

All of these things would have greatly reduced the chance his interceptor (be in RGP or Fel) could have avoided that automatic one-shot.

Not tryin' to be a jerk, just sayin' ...

Yes x5. He was ill-prepared for a Fenn-tastic roll. But are 6 die primary attacks the wave of the future? Or, now that we have 6 dice, does Wave 11 need a 7 die attack to maintain the power of kewl?

Miranda can already roll 7 dice APTs (5 + Jan + Miranda), as well as Norra and Shara. And come HotR, the VCX, which already had 5 dice primaries at R1, can now get 7 dice primaries at R1 (5 + Jan + Finn)...

But will any of that be competitive? Doubtful.

No offence, but I could care less about "competitive." Having small/large ships out there that can spew out more damage than a Corellian Corvette seems. . .wrong.

Heck, let's instigate "blow throw" damage. . .if you have left over dice from your first 12 die attack, feel free to apply it to the next fighter behind it at range one.

Fearlessness only works if you give Fenn the joust he wants and why would you do that? Unless you are flying a single ship list then you should be able to flank him with something else because you know where he is trying to go with Fearlessness equipped.

Fearlessness is kind of cool, but the range and arc restrictions make it tough to pull off against an opponent who knows how it works which only takes reading the card.

It isn't any worse than Miranda missiles, Bossk Crackshot missiles, or N'dru stim missiles. You can do it multiple times in a match, but you will be hard pressed to pull it off more than once against someone who knows how it works. Pulling it off once ain't gonna be easy, having Fearlessness telegraphs where he wants to be and there are plenty ships perfectly capable of blocking his move.

I'd also argue that the Phantom is worse, specifically Whisper, who gets four dice primary, system slot, crew slot, and ACD. She can push damage through at any range especially once Fire Control System kicks in and she has her prey perpetually target locked. The VCX ain't no slouch either. I am really hating those things. Four attack dice, system slot, large base for blocking, amazing crew options, and it can take a turret to cover its a$$.

I'd recommend flying Fenn Rau yourself for a few games. If your opponents don't understand how he works then yes he will burn down ships with ease but that is true of a lot of ship builds in X-Wing, and a lot of those aren't competitive.

A good player can also use a blocker to get you into a spot where Fenn Rau will be able to hit you at R1. So, it's not just "you see it coming and get out of the way". It is possible for someone to get you. Of course, you can just counter with "well, I would see the block coming and not be there". Still, you get the general idea that sometimes you might not be able to help it. Everything is situational.

As for the Miranda/Bossk/N'dru comparisons, I am not really arguing that it's worse than them. It's just more of the same. Being able to get a huge amount of red dice in one throw is becoming less of a rare item and more common place. So, that is red dice creep to me.

As for anything about the Tie Phantom being worse, I will never argue with that! I freakin' hate that ship. I consider it the worst addition to the game of all time, even with the nerf. I think it should've been 3 red dice, and not 4.

I think a lot of it has to do with the developers trying to fit new and interesting abilities onto ships and cards within the frame work of rules that were set out a couple of years ago.

I remember when Defense was all the rage and games were won by out lasting your opponent. I specifically built a tournament list to try and deal with that mess because it wasn't fun for me playing against it. Han/Chewy/Dash/Decimator before half points rule, Soontir Fel, Regen Poe/Miranda are all ships I grew to hate because while I could fly well enough to get shots, I just couldn't kill them fast enough and I lost a lot of games on points. Personally I think the game is kind of boring when it is played defensively like it used to be, it generally goes to time and it is just more exciting when you blow things up.

More red dice means you can turtle so well or rely on regen to save your butt and I'm ok with that.

On the subject of Whisper; I hated her so much. A friend of mine used to fly Buzzsaw Whisper(VI, FCS, Gunner, ACD) + what ever pretty much exclusively. After dealing with that for about a year I started running Whisper myself and learned a lot about her weaknesses. I still give a TIE Phantom respect but I know them well enough that I don't hate them anymore.

If your brother was silly enough to joust with Fenn Rau then he deserved the education he got. You have to look at what is on the other side of the table from you and decide how best to maximize your strengths while minimizing your opponent's strengths.

OK, so the point is not that my bro is an uneducated idiot and I stuffed it to him big time. The point is, that as the game stands, there is nothing he could do to save his ship. He had no idea that this game has gotten into 6 die primary attacks--it used to be that a proton torpedo was a MAJOR attack, requiring range 1, a TL, and a focus to make it happen.. And if the game continues to Attack die power creep, it is going to become very lop-sided.

I mean, this is still false. Let's not forget your Fenn had less than a 25% chance of even rolling five hits on his attack with only a Focus. Nevertheless, he could have:

(1) Not jousted with Fenn, instead turning away and stretching Fenn out on a chase which both makes it difficult to Fenn to get into R1 and allows the rest of his ships to potentially flank Fenn

(2) Approached more slowly, to force Fenn to fight at R2 or R3 or spend his action boosting into R1 instead of Focus-ing

(3) He could have Evaded for his action (6-(3+1)=2, which means chance of survival.

(4) He could augmented his chance at survival (3) by using PtL and Palpatine to greatly increase the chance he has F+E+Palp

(5) He could have ran Soontir Fel + Stealth + PTL instead of RGP, which would actually give him an incredible chance to either arc-dodge Fenn if he doesn't have initiative or to shoot first and perhaps strip Fenn's focus token if he does have initiative. Furthermore, Soontir+Stealth+Palp+FFE has a very real chance of only taking a single damage from Fenn's god-roll (4+1=5).

All of these things would have greatly reduced the chance his interceptor (be in RGP or Fel) could have avoided that automatic one-shot.

Not tryin' to be a jerk, just sayin' ...

Yes x5. He was ill-prepared for a Fenn-tastic roll. But are 6 die primary attacks the wave of the future? Or, now that we have 6 dice, does Wave 11 need a 7 die attack to maintain the power of kewl?

Miranda can already roll 7 dice APTs (5 + Jan + Miranda), as well as Norra and Shara. And come HotR, the VCX, which already had 5 dice primaries at R1, can now get 7 dice primaries at R1 (5 + Jan + Finn)...

But will any of that be competitive? Doubtful.

No offence, but I could care less about "competitive." Having small/large ships out there that can spew out more damage than a Corellian Corvette seems. . .wrong.

Heck, let's instigate "blow throw" damage. . .if you have left over dice from your first 12 die attack, feel free to apply it to the next fighter behind it at range one.

Balance will always take precedence over fluff. Also, it's disingenuous to correlate red dice strictly to the attack power of the weapon, especially considering red dice are the accuracy of the attack. For example, Fearlessness adds a hit result because the pilot is risking his own ship so that he can put more of his own shots on target, not because his gun magically got stronger by flying like a crazy person. If you want a "fluff" reason for Fenn Rau's ability, it's because he's a good pilot at close ranges, able to keep more of his own shots on target while flying in a way to minimize his own risk.

if fluff > balance then the xwing would take out 6 tie fighters on his own with ease, as TIE fighters rarely ever survive even a single hit

Squints have ALWAYS been fish in a barrel if you actually get tokenless shots on them. I mean, they literally have less defenses than a TIE Fighter. You have to rely on their arc dodging (which means the high PS ones) or fortressing up in the rare case they have a shot to make them not melt.

What? Let's say you actually take a Tie Interceptor without Auto Thrusters. That leaves you with 3 green dice and 3 hull. What does a Tie Fighter have? 3 green dice and 3 hull. They are "literally" identical.

I think a lot of it has to do with the developers trying to fit new and interesting abilities onto ships and cards within the frame work of rules that were set out a couple of years ago.

...

More red dice means you can turtle so well or rely on regen to save your butt and I'm ok with that.

On the subject of Whisper; I hated her so much. A friend of mine used to fly Buzzsaw Whisper(VI, FCS, Gunner, ACD) + what ever pretty much exclusively. After dealing with that for about a year I started running Whisper myself and learned a lot about her weaknesses. I still give a TIE Phantom respect but I know them well enough that I don't hate them anymore.

Yep. I get that it happens. When you start adding in new ships and need to keep them interesting, it happens. I don't believe that FFG does it as some sort of marketing to keep you buying the ships as some people think. I think it just gets harder to balance things or that your new power level is the other OP stuff that's already out. I just don't get when fickle says that it isn't red dice power creep at all. Just because it's been possible with some ships before doesn't mean having more of the same doesn't mean it isn't power creep.

As for Tie Phantoms....I just hate them. Unless you practice the heck out of flying against them to know all their weaknesses and how to block them, it comes out that there are certain things you have to take in your list or else you will never beat them. It made the variety of the game utterly stale and uninteresting to me. You needed something that caused Stress so it can't re-cloak or high PS that can fire 360 to kill it before it can fire. If your list didn't have this, then your chances of killing the Phantom were slim. It's the biggest example of rock/paper/scissor type gaming for X-wing.

If your brother was silly enough to joust with Fenn Rau then he deserved the education he got. You have to look at what is on the other side of the table from you and decide how best to maximize your strengths while minimizing your opponent's strengths.

OK, so the point is not that my bro is an uneducated idiot and I stuffed it to him big time. The point is, that as the game stands, there is nothing he could do to save his ship. He had no idea that this game has gotten into 6 die primary attacks--it used to be that a proton torpedo was a MAJOR attack, requiring range 1, a TL, and a focus to make it happen.. And if the game continues to Attack die power creep, it is going to become very lop-sided.

I mean, this is still false. Let's not forget your Fenn had less than a 25% chance of even rolling five hits on his attack with only a Focus. Nevertheless, he could have:

(1) Not jousted with Fenn, instead turning away and stretching Fenn out on a chase which both makes it difficult to Fenn to get into R1 and allows the rest of his ships to potentially flank Fenn

(2) Approached more slowly, to force Fenn to fight at R2 or R3 or spend his action boosting into R1 instead of Focus-ing

(3) He could have Evaded for his action (6-(3+1)=2, which means chance of survival.

(4) He could augmented his chance at survival (3) by using PtL and Palpatine to greatly increase the chance he has F+E+Palp

(5) He could have ran Soontir Fel + Stealth + PTL instead of RGP, which would actually give him an incredible chance to either arc-dodge Fenn if he doesn't have initiative or to shoot first and perhaps strip Fenn's focus token if he does have initiative. Furthermore, Soontir+Stealth+Palp+FFE has a very real chance of only taking a single damage from Fenn's god-roll (4+1=5).

All of these things would have greatly reduced the chance his interceptor (be in RGP or Fel) could have avoided that automatic one-shot.

Not tryin' to be a jerk, just sayin' ...

Yes x5. He was ill-prepared for a Fenn-tastic roll. But are 6 die primary attacks the wave of the future? Or, now that we have 6 dice, does Wave 11 need a 7 die attack to maintain the power of kewl?

Miranda can already roll 7 dice APTs (5 + Jan + Miranda), as well as Norra and Shara. And come HotR, the VCX, which already had 5 dice primaries at R1, can now get 7 dice primaries at R1 (5 + Jan + Finn)...

But will any of that be competitive? Doubtful.

No offence, but I could care less about "competitive." Having small/large ships out there that can spew out more damage than a Corellian Corvette seems. . .wrong.

Heck, let's instigate "blow throw" damage. . .if you have left over dice from your first 12 die attack, feel free to apply it to the next fighter behind it at range one.

Balance will always take precedence over fluff. Also, it's disingenuous to correlate red dice strictly to the attack power of the weapon, especially considering red dice are the accuracy of the attack. For example, Fearlessness adds a hit result because the pilot is risking his own ship so that he can put more of his own shots on target, not because his gun magically got stronger by flying like a crazy person. If you want a "fluff" reason for Fenn Rau's ability, it's because he's a good pilot at close ranges, able to keep more of his own shots on target while flying in a way to minimize his own risk.

Well, then I hate to see how many dice a Jedi pilot can throw when we finally get a few in the game.

if fluff > balance then the xwing would take out 6 tie fighters on his own with ease, as TIE fighters rarely ever survive even a single hit

Fair enough, BUT

I play this game because it is set in the Star Wars universe. It would NOT have gotten into it if it were not SW-based. So, balance matters, but the fluff also matters, and I think it matters for a whole lot of the players out there.

I want to see things that make sense within the milieu of Star Wars, not stuff that are end-justified by game-mechanics-meta-speak.

Squints have ALWAYS been fish in a barrel if you actually get tokenless shots on them. I mean, they literally have less defenses than a TIE Fighter. You have to rely on their arc dodging (which means the high PS ones) or fortressing up in the rare case they have a shot to make them not melt.

What? Let's say you actually take a Tie Interceptor without Auto Thrusters. That leaves you with 3 green dice and 3 hull. What does a Tie Fighter have? 3 green dice and 3 hull. They are "literally" identical.

I think a lot of it has to do with the developers trying to fit new and interesting abilities onto ships and cards within the frame work of rules that were set out a couple of years ago.

...

More red dice means you can turtle so well or rely on regen to save your butt and I'm ok with that.

On the subject of Whisper; I hated her so much. A friend of mine used to fly Buzzsaw Whisper(VI, FCS, Gunner, ACD) + what ever pretty much exclusively. After dealing with that for about a year I started running Whisper myself and learned a lot about her weaknesses. I still give a TIE Phantom respect but I know them well enough that I don't hate them anymore.

As for Tie Phantoms....I just hate them. Unless you practice the heck out of flying against them to know all their weaknesses and how to block them, it comes out that there are certain things you have to take in your list or else you will never beat them. It made the variety of the game utterly stale and uninteresting to me. You needed something that caused Stress so it can't re-cloak or high PS that can fire 360 to kill it before it can fire. If your list didn't have this, then your chances of killing the Phantom were slim. It's the biggest example of rock/paper/scissor type gaming for X-wing.

It is worth it to fly Whisper a dozen or so times if you hate to face her. Obstacle placement can go a long way toward making her easier to take out, her decloaks are normally pretty predictable if you want her to get shots and her maneuvers as well. Basically, Whispers moves can be fairly predictable once you understand her and that is their big weakness besides stress. Whisper went from being a seemingly demi-god of a ship to just another solid ship for me. Well flown Phantoms are strong but that is true of a lot of ships.

If your brother was silly enough to joust with Fenn Rau then he deserved the education he got. You have to look at what is on the other side of the table from you and decide how best to maximize your strengths while minimizing your opponent's strengths.

OK, so the point is not that my bro is an uneducated idiot and I stuffed it to him big time. The point is, that as the game stands, there is nothing he could do to save his ship. He had no idea that this game has gotten into 6 die primary attacks--it used to be that a proton torpedo was a MAJOR attack, requiring range 1, a TL, and a focus to make it happen.. And if the game continues to Attack die power creep, it is going to become very lop-sided.

I mean, this is still false. Let's not forget your Fenn had less than a 25% chance of even rolling five hits on his attack with only a Focus. Nevertheless, he could have:

(1) Not jousted with Fenn, instead turning away and stretching Fenn out on a chase which both makes it difficult to Fenn to get into R1 and allows the rest of his ships to potentially flank Fenn

(2) Approached more slowly, to force Fenn to fight at R2 or R3 or spend his action boosting into R1 instead of Focus-ing

(3) He could have Evaded for his action (6-(3+1)=2, which means chance of survival.

(4) He could augmented his chance at survival (3) by using PtL and Palpatine to greatly increase the chance he has F+E+Palp

(5) He could have ran Soontir Fel + Stealth + PTL instead of RGP, which would actually give him an incredible chance to either arc-dodge Fenn if he doesn't have initiative or to shoot first and perhaps strip Fenn's focus token if he does have initiative. Furthermore, Soontir+Stealth+Palp+FFE has a very real chance of only taking a single damage from Fenn's god-roll (4+1=5).

All of these things would have greatly reduced the chance his interceptor (be in RGP or Fel) could have avoided that automatic one-shot.

Not tryin' to be a jerk, just sayin' ...

Yes x5. He was ill-prepared for a Fenn-tastic roll. But are 6 die primary attacks the wave of the future? Or, now that we have 6 dice, does Wave 11 need a 7 die attack to maintain the power of kewl?

Miranda can already roll 7 dice APTs (5 + Jan + Miranda), as well as Norra and Shara. And come HotR, the VCX, which already had 5 dice primaries at R1, can now get 7 dice primaries at R1 (5 + Jan + Finn)...

But will any of that be competitive? Doubtful.

No offence, but I could care less about "competitive." Having small/large ships out there that can spew out more damage than a Corellian Corvette seems. . .wrong.

Heck, let's instigate "blow throw" damage. . .if you have left over dice from your first 12 die attack, feel free to apply it to the next fighter behind it at range one.

Balance will always take precedence over fluff. Also, it's disingenuous to correlate red dice strictly to the attack power of the weapon, especially considering red dice are the accuracy of the attack. For example, Fearlessness adds a hit result because the pilot is risking his own ship so that he can put more of his own shots on target, not because his gun magically got stronger by flying like a crazy person. If you want a "fluff" reason for Fenn Rau's ability, it's because he's a good pilot at close ranges, able to keep more of his own shots on target while flying in a way to minimize his own risk.

Well, then I hate to see how many dice a Jedi pilot can throw when we finally get a few in the game.

if fluff > balance then the xwing would take out 6 tie fighters on his own with ease, as TIE fighters rarely ever survive even a single hit

Fair enough, BUT

I play this game because it is set in the Star Wars universe. It would NOT have gotten into it if it were not SW-based. So, balance matters, but the fluff also matters, and I think it matters for a whole lot of the players out there.

I want to see things that make sense within the milieu of Star Wars, not stuff that are end-justified by game-mechanics-meta-speak.

As for Tie Phantoms....I just hate them. Unless you practice the heck out of flying against them to know all their weaknesses and how to block them, it comes out that there are certain things you have to take in your list or else you will never beat them. It made the variety of the game utterly stale and uninteresting to me. You needed something that caused Stress so it can't re-cloak or high PS that can fire 360 to kill it before it can fire. If your list didn't have this, then your chances of killing the Phantom were slim. It's the biggest example of rock/paper/scissor type gaming for X-wing.

It was when they could change where they were depending on when you went. Now when a phantom cloaks it is somewhere. It can be anticipated and outmaneuvered.

Personally, i hate whisper. The only reason i dont denounce her as terrible is because getting to PS9 and taking initiative can counter the main threat phantoms have: PS9 PWTs (specifically dengar). Other PS9+ pilots she can dodge and outfly but Dengar has a shot at all times.

Echo is where its at. At PS8 she has a slightly more vulnerable state before recloaking problem, but DANG is she elusive lol.

Well, then I hate to see how many dice a Jedi pilot can throw when we finally get a few in the game.

This is a good point, I mean imagine when we get Luke Skywalker flying an XWing or Darth Vader flying a TIE Advanced finally in the game. I'm surprised they didn't include such powerful and recognizable Jedi already but I'm sure those two will be crazy unbeatable.

I want to see things that make sense within the milieu of Star Wars, not stuff that are end-justified by game-mechanics-meta-speak.

Alright, so if you were the designer in charge of designing the Protectorate and more specifically Fenn Rau, how would you design him to differentiate him from tie interceptors while still being competitive? Surely you wouldn't make him more defensive, seeing as so many people hate Soontir. Naturally, you'd have to make him more offensive than Soontir to give people some reason to fly him.

Dang. Someone finally called me out

Well, for one thing, I don't think the number of dice tossed should be an indicator of accuracy or skill, as has been discussed at some point. Red dice should be raw weapon power.

So, then skill should be a reflection of actions allowed. Ala Darth Vader; the only guy with two actions every round. Which only begs the question: "Why is Fenn Rau BETTER than a dark lord of the Sith??!!!!"

Accuracy should be a reflection of better hits, ala critical damage.

So, perhaps Fenn Rau should have had abilities that do not add more dice (topping at 4), but make them auto crits. With the right cards drawn, 2 auto crits a turn could become 6 damage, but not always.

Personally, i hate whisper. The only reason i dont denounce her as terrible is because getting to PS9 and taking initiative can counter the main threat phantoms have: PS9 PWTs (specifically dengar). Other PS9+ pilots she can dodge and outfly but Dengar has a shot at all times.

Yes, but that's part of the reason why I hate Whisper. It basically forces you to go to PS 9 to beat her. Combine that with Soontir Fel, the PTL Arc Dodger extraordinaire, and you have another PS 9 race. I miss the game when you didn't have to have PS 9 to win tournaments.

Personally, i hate whisper. The only reason i dont denounce her as terrible is because getting to PS9 and taking initiative can counter the main threat phantoms have: PS9 PWTs (specifically dengar). Other PS9+ pilots she can dodge and outfly but Dengar has a shot at all times.

Yes, but that's part of the reason why I hate Whisper. It basically forces you to go to PS 9 to beat her. Combine that with Soontir Fel, the PTL Arc Dodger extraordinaire, and you have another PS 9 race. I miss the game when you didn't have to have PS 9 to win tournaments.

You dont

Just use guaranteed damage

Really easy, high value and low health target to nab with nets

Squints have ALWAYS been fish in a barrel if you actually get tokenless shots on them. I mean, they literally have less defenses than a TIE Fighter. You have to rely on their arc dodging (which means the high PS ones) or fortressing up in the rare case they have a shot to make them not melt.

What? Let's say you actually take a Tie Interceptor without Auto Thrusters. That leaves you with 3 green dice and 3 hull. What does a Tie Fighter have? 3 green dice and 3 hull. They are "literally" identical.

In his defence, "literally", can now mean "figuratively".

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/10240917/Uproar-as-OED-includes-erroneous-use-of-literally.html

We live in a dark time...

Well, then I hate to see how many dice a Jedi pilot can throw when we finally get a few in the game.

This is a good point, I mean imagine when we get Luke Skywalker flying an XWing or Darth Vader flying a TIE Advanced finally in the game. I'm surprised they didn't include such powerful and recognizable Jedi already but I'm sure those two will be crazy unbeatable.

Well, then I hate to see how many dice a Jedi pilot can throw when we finally get a few in the game.

This is a good point, I mean imagine when we get Luke Skywalker flying an XWing or Darth Vader flying a TIE Advanced finally in the game. I'm surprised they didn't include such powerful and recognizable Jedi already but I'm sure those two will be crazy unbeatable.

Right. I realize it is a reflection of design order, but these guys should be the best, n'est-ce pas?

Well, then I hate to see how many dice a Jedi pilot can throw when we finally get a few in the game.

This is a good point, I mean imagine when we get Luke Skywalker flying an XWing or Darth Vader flying a TIE Advanced finally in the game. I'm surprised they didn't include such powerful and recognizable Jedi already but I'm sure those two will be crazy unbeatable.

Right. I realize it is a reflection of design order, but these guys should be the best, n'est-ce pas?

Honestly I'd say Vader has the best pilot ability in the game bar none. His ship can be hit or miss but his ability is crazy. Luke on the other hand........