I prefer by far that ships die quickly than that ships never die (looking at you Soontir Fel).

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...

While that's true (and I despair for the future of language) it doesn't make him any less wrong. "figuratively less defenses" is impossible when they have literally the same defenses.

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.

Red dice modification has NEEDED to overshadow greens, because without reliable reds it's almost impossible to hit imperial aces backed by palpatine. Reds should also have more modification than greens because if greens are overly modified (see palp aces again), ships just never die and the game just goes on forever.

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.

There's more than just the phantom and ghost that could do it. There's a number of ways to get 6 dice in a shot, you could get to 7 before wave 9. Norra can get to 8. Sure, you could argue it's "red die creep" but pretty much 0 of the ways to do it are actually any good. Fenn with fearlessness is probably the best way to get to 6, but even that's not nearly as good as just running fenn with PTL so you don't have to give your opponent range 1 shots at you.

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.

You know how fenn rau dies? He gets in someone's arc at range 1. Not everything gets 1shot by fearless fenn. And then they shoot back. I've had fenn one-shot in a range 1 joust. 4 health, even with 3 agility and the title is just not enough to keep him alive consistently. I'll agree that fearless fenn is probably better than most other ways to get up to 6+ hits, but it's still not as good as just...not getting shot. I'll take unreturned 5 dice attacks over trading and getting 6 any day. Sure, sometimes you might one-shot someone, but how often will you do that compared to when you get one-shot back? Or they have 2 or 3 shots and just kill you after you get off one nuke?

He's fun to fly casually (I've flown a few games with fearlessness), but anytime I'd never do it in a game where I really cared about winning.

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.

Darth Vader is in a different ship for one thing.

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.

The PS9 race all but died with wave 8. PS8 imp aces are everywhere. Jumpmasters couldn't care less if you're PS 7 or PS9. Dengaroo gets up there, but even there it's less about being a 9 and more about his ability. Crackswarms, chihuahuas, dash/ghost, defenders since vets released, there were tons of winning lists that weren't PS9. Sure, there's still PS9s out there, but it's nothing like the Whisper/Fat Han days. Looking at the regional results thread, you don't see a PS9 in a winning list until the 8th tournament on the list (where it's whisper ironically). Another 8 tournaments to get to the next one.

Whisper is still good, but she's hardly gamebreaking these days.

Phantom is the only true PS race in my opinion. Echo dodges this (HA puns) because of her whacky flight pattern for the most part, and shes still PS8.

Truth be told i wish they made cloak a bit less powerful and buffed the phantom base stats as a result and never introduced adv cloaking. The ship lives or dies by the cloak bonus agi, its soooo easy to take out if its decloaked and even when it is cloaked 4 green dice and a focus doesnt make you unhitable at all. I'd like to have that free evade from decloak/cloak but just flatout recloaking is too good, to the point where it might as well be a built-in upgrade.

Give it 3hull and 3agi, cloak only adds +1 agi (+2 at range 3, so phantoms would have 6 green at range3 but otherwise be 4agi like before when cloaked), and remove Adv Cloaking Device. Now, decloak/cloak is a big deal because once you cloak you cant attack (obviously) and once you decloak, you cant recloak for a full round so you better hope you arent in a bad spot. Flipside, if you are shot at decloaked you arent basically automatically dead, but probably hurt.

Phantom is the only true PS race in my opinion. Echo dodges this (HA puns) because of her whacky flight pattern for the most part, and shes still PS8.

Truth be told i wish they made cloak a bit less powerful and buffed the phantom base stats as a result and never introduced adv cloaking. The ship lives or dies by the cloak bonus agi, its soooo easy to take out if its decloaked and even when it is cloaked 4 green dice and a focus doesnt make you unhitable at all. I'd like to have that free evade from decloak/cloak but just flatout recloaking is too good, to the point where it might as well be a built-in upgrade.

Give it 3hull and 3agi, cloak only adds +1 agi (+2 at range 3, so phantoms would have 6 green at range3 but otherwise be 4agi like before when cloaked), and remove Adv Cloaking Device. Now, decloak/cloak is a big deal because once you cloak you cant attack (obviously) and once you decloak, you cant recloak for a full round so you better hope you arent in a bad spot. Flipside, if you are shot at decloaked you arent basically automatically dead, but probably hurt.

Why cloak at all then? You've got TIE Advanced-level durability (not great, I know), but with those big four dice and an evade action. Then you start looking like every other ship out there. If there's one thing I like about the Phantom, it's that flying it is an authentically different experience from any other ship.

The jumpmasters are basically what happens when ordnance is good in this game. It's just badly designed at the moment and can never really result in anything interesting without being uninteresting alpha strikes.

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.

Yeah, that Range 1 6 die attack is nasty. However, it _is_ a major investment to get it off.

1) You had to spend the extra 2 points to take the pilot with the extra die.

2) you had to take an EPT which can only be procked by meeting 3 conditions.

3) You had to joust right into the guns of an enemy who could reply with a enough firepower to obliterate you.

4) when you've got that many dice going off, you want either Target Lock or Focus or- ideally- both.

It's not as obvious an investment as seeing a Torpedo on the board, but. It's still an investment.

Against that, what was your brother running? The "standard" build for any Squint is:

Royal Guard Pilot (22)

Push the Limit (3)

Stealth Device (3)

Autothrusters (2)

Royal Guard TIE (0)

Total: 30

View in Yet Another Squad Builder

Push the Limit is there to allow defense through mmaeuvering, or defense by token stacking. Autothrusters and Stealth Device are both love for green dice.

In that same exchange, a Squint built differently (the way I have described above) would have been able to avoid up to 5 of those 6 hits- 4 from the dice, plus 1 from an evade token.

Indeed. One of the reasons for the extreme red dice love that we've seen is a proliferation of Green Dice manipulation abilities- many of which are specifically built for the TIE Interceptor.

In fact, many people are wondering if 2 Dice attack ships are even viable anymore.

In fact, many people are wondering if 2 Dice attack ships are even viable anymore.

I'd say that remains one of the key points of the "TIE/sf is terrible" argument - is a two die attack out the rear better than no attack at all? If you're facing ships with extremely consistent defense and you don't have a Crack Shot or the like up your sleeve the difference between two dice and none is narrower than is perhaps healthy.

I'd say that remains one of the key points of the "TIE/sf is terrible" argument - is a two die attack out the rear better than no attack at all? If you're facing ships with extremely consistent defense and you don't have a Crack Shot or the like up your sleeve the difference between two dice and none is narrower than is perhaps healthy.

Well. From where I'm sitting, the TIE S/F is T-70 stat line at T-65 prices. (Except, weirdly, the Zeta Specialist, which is a point more than its T-65 equivalent should be.) It also has a great action bar and a great upgrade bar. Also a nice dial. When it gets access to Primed Thrusters, it will be even better.

The rear arc is a nice gimmick, I think.

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.

Against that, what was your brother running? The "standard" build for any Squint is:

Royal Guard Pilot (22)

Push the Limit (3)

Stealth Device (3)

Autothrusters (2)

Royal Guard TIE (0)

Total: 30

View in Yet Another Squad Builder

Push the Limit is there to allow defense through mmaeuvering, or defense by token stacking. Autothrusters and Stealth Device are both love for green dice.

In that same exchange, a Squint built differently (the way I have described above) would have been able to avoid up to 5 of those 6 hits- 4 from the dice, plus 1 from an evade token.

Indeed. One of the reasons for the extreme red dice love that we've seen is a proliferation of Green Dice manipulation abilities- many of which are specifically built for the TIE Interceptor.

In fact, many people are wondering if 2 Dice attack ships are even viable anymore.

One thing to remember is that we are playing Epic. One-shot abilities like SD are less helpful in surviving the long-term melee. And, to a certain extent, stress is less desirable given the amount of bogies that can take advantage of an impaired maneuver dial. All of his Squints had AT, however.

Also, I'm typically the Imp, so he was actually a bit of a newbie for the build.

I think I'll give your suggestion a try, OTOH.

In fact, many people are wondering if 2 Dice attack ships are even viable anymore.

I'd say that remains one of the key points of the "TIE/sf is terrible" argument - is a two die attack out the rear better than no attack at all? If you're facing ships with extremely consistent defense and you don't have a Crack Shot or the like up your sleeve the difference between two dice and none is narrower than is perhaps healthy.

Hence the Accuracy Corrector. If you only get 2 dice, they are ALWAYS hits, unless you roll a Crit and want to leave that be.

Which, for a TIE/sf is 4 hits, guaranteed.

My go to list for competitive play is dual aggressors.

Green dice fail all the time. If your approach to any match is hoping that green dice will save you, then you have already likely lost. Just my .02.

Last check for interesting posts. . .off to this tomorrow (no, I don't get to see Rogue One early, but I do get to dream up lists under the palm trees):

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.

Fearlessness could have easily have been called Cool Under Fire, Nerves of Steel, or anything that gives the impression like that what Zef said. I like your analogies Zef. Aces are Aces because they don't panic, can second guess their opponent and combat situations are just another day to them.

One thing to remember is that we are playing Epic. One-shot abilities like SD are less helpful in surviving the long-term melee. And, to a certain extent, stress is less desirable given the amount of bogies that can take advantage of an impaired maneuver dial. All of his Squints had AT, however.

Also, I'm typically the Imp, so he was actually a bit of a newbie for the build.

I think I'll give your suggestion a try, OTOH.

In fact, many people are wondering if 2 Dice attack ships are even viable anymore.

I'd say that remains one of the key points of the "TIE/sf is terrible" argument - is a two die attack out the rear better than no attack at all? If you're facing ships with extremely consistent defense and you don't have a Crack Shot or the like up your sleeve the difference between two dice and none is narrower than is perhaps healthy.

Hence the Accuracy Corrector. If you only get 2 dice, they are ALWAYS hits, unless you roll a Crit and want to leave that be.

Which, for a TIE/sf is 4 hits, guaranteed.

However! Outmaneuver looks like a great EPT on a ship with a rear arc...

Also, for your next Epic match, when you know you're up against a Huge ship:

Gamma Squadron Veteran (19)

Opportunist (4)

Extra Munitions (2)

Concussion Missiles (4)

Guidance Chips (0)

Total: 29

View in Yet Another Squad Builder

Your Concussion Missiles are tossing 5 red dice at a Huge ship, and getting a minimum of 2 hits. Probably many more.

Last check for interesting posts. . .off to this tomorrow (no, I don't get to see Rogue One early, but I do get to dream up lists under the palm trees):

THOSE Palm trees?

Take marshmallows! And a helmet

If red and green dice were made equal then, statistically, the game would literally never end

That is btw not true. Statistical variance would still cause hits, while rolling more evades than you need would not regenerate your hull/shields. You off all people should know best that green dice only roll all natural evades when the red dice blank out.

It still close enough to true as the game would be getting longer and longer … and two dice attacks would be even more worthless. ^-^

The problem is that they are trying to adjust attacks to have a chance of damaging the invincible ships like Baron Fel or tie defenders who are getting free evade tokens.

This means, however, that ships that aren't ridiculously hard to hit, are just run over.

It's pretty sad. Rather than power creeping like they are, I say they just need to start working on errata for the op stuff. And fix errata for underpowered ships and titles such as the HWK290.

You've got players like HeyChadwick and Darth Meanie who are posting big complaints about "power creep" and lack of balance between old versus new, but then they go on to say that they don't care about "competitiveness" or "balance" or what "top tables at Worlds look like" because they just play casual games for fun.

WHAT??!?!

You guys are just complaining because NEW SHIP has more X than OLD SHIPS. Were you complaining that the Decimator was Hull Point power creep?? Or complaining that the TIE Punisher was ordnance upgrade power creep? Or the Starviper as K-Turn power creep? or the K-Wing as Boost-Action power creep? Or the Hound's Tooth as front arc power creep? Or ...

Many of the things which make a ship flavorful, thematic, and distinct are things that set it apart from other ships. That's not power creep. If those new elements routinely outperform older elements on the table (ie, in tournament settings) then THAT would be power creep. New Widget having more X than Old Widgets has nothing to do with balance.


I'm sorry a new card in its first outing beat an inexperienced player who hadn't even looked at the card yet until it became relevant on a a die roll that only had a 25% of occurring. But luckily for us, FFG doesn't use your single basement game as it's metric when costing and balancing cards...

(...) That's not power creep. If those new elements routinely outperform older elements on the table (ie, in tournament settings) then THAT would be power creep.

Regarding the example discussed: Fenn Rau with his dial (+ even counting secondaries) vs Talonbane with his dial.

(...) That's not power creep. If those new elements routinely outperform older elements on the table (ie, in tournament settings) then THAT would be power creep.

Regarding the example discussed: Fenn Rau with his dial (+ even counting secondaries) vs Talonbane with his dial.

Regarding this: is it really power creep if a new ship is better than an old ship that was bad to begin with ?

(...) That's not power creep. If those new elements routinely outperform older elements on the table (ie, in tournament settings) then THAT would be power creep.

Regarding the example discussed: Fenn Rau with his dial (+ even counting secondaries) vs Talonbane with his dial.

Talonbane wasn't very good at his time. It would be hard not to make a better PS9 ace.

(...) That's not power creep. If those new elements routinely outperform older elements on the table (ie, in tournament settings) then THAT would be power creep.

Regarding the example discussed: Fenn Rau with his dial (+ even counting secondaries) vs Talonbane with his dial.

Talonbane wasn't very good at his time. It would be hard not to make a better PS9 ace.

Now pops up Fenn, -1 shield, but +1agi, BR, Boost, 3hards, 5straight, 2 Talonroll instead 5K. At the SAME cost!

For meekly 2pts more he has potentially 6att and 1 evade.

Cobra is junk and rau is what cobra would look like if cobra wasnt junk

That isnt powercreep, thats just balance while cobra is power-face-planted-at-the-starting-line

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.

Uh kinda funny here but.. it is a marketing gimmick, the ships get stronger, you buy new ships. Want your older X-wings and Y-wings and Ties and Interceptors to catch up? Buy the new packs for the new cards!

Not like IA, and Y-wing titles and Twin Ion engine mk/II and autothrusters and the slew of other "fix" cards where free to those who bought the ships prior..

It seems that sometimes new waves bring vitality to older cards (eg JM5k giving Deadeye a sense of purpose in life)...

...perhaps Fel's Wrath has finally found a role - as a Fenn-hunter???