"Unless otherwise stated in the ability, all non-Epic pilot and upgrade abilities cannot function at beyond range 3."

It puts a slight reduction of power on Palpatine, Manaroo, Attanni Mindlink, Sabine, and the like, without eliminating them. Upgrades like ST321 and Long Range Scanners still function as written.

Does this bring them all and in the darkness bind them?

Agent Kallus would be useless.

I guess if HoTR Han deployed close enough and before the ship with Kallus did, there would still be an edge case that he'd still work.

I'm all for sacrificing a few cards to stabilize the token/dice spam explosion (too severe to be a creep).

Most "When Defending" abilities would not function when being fired on by an Epic ship at range 4 or 5.

So modify the language such that abilities function as normal in Epic play.

1 minute ago, Hawkstrike said:

So modify the language such that abilities function as normal in Epic play.

Uh oh, that sounds like a lot of rules. . .

If we're getting to this point, with cards so problematic we're considering changing core rules to account for them, I'd start to wonder whether it's easier and cleaner to just start polishing the Banhammer.

Just now, Darth Meanie said:

Uh oh, that sounds like a lot of rules. . .

Like: "In normal, non-Epic play, unless otherwise stated in the ability, pilot and upgrade abilities cannot function at beyond range 3."

Just now, Hawkstrike said:

Like: "In normal, non-Epic play, unless otherwise stated in the ability, pilot and upgrade abilities cannot function at beyond range 3."

Kinda verbose, but that wasn't the criteria, was it?

1 minute ago, Hawkstrike said:

Like: "In normal, non-Epic play, unless otherwise stated in the ability, pilot and upgrade abilities cannot function at beyond range 3."

So now upgrade cards literally start working differently when you're playing in Epic? I'm not sure that's a healthy solution either.

2 minutes ago, Reiver said:

So now upgrade cards literally start working differently when you're playing in Epic? I'm not sure that's a healthy solution either.

Epic already has unique rules. What's one more?

1 hour ago, Hawkstrike said:

"Unless otherwise stated in the ability, all non-Epic pilot and upgrade abilities cannot function at beyond range 3."

It puts a slight reduction of power on Palpatine, Manaroo, Attanni Mindlink, Sabine, and the like, without eliminating them. Upgrades like ST321 and Long Range Scanners still function as written.

Does this bring them all and in the darkness bind them?

No.

If a problem upgrade exists just point tax it in the FAQ. FFG has the tools to tweak point costs upwards.

No, this would wind up overly complicating which abilities are useful for epic versus standard play, would destroy others entirely, etc, and not really fix the issue since they're only limiting the range some.

1 hour ago, DR4CO said:

If we're getting to this point, with cards so problematic we're considering changing core rules to account for them, I'd start to wonder whether it's easier and cleaner to just start polishing the Banhammer.

The good news is that we're not at that point, and there are no problems with either card, and we're not at the point where the banhammer is needed.

I remember the days when people wanted to nerf C3-P0, as that card was considered OP. Turns out: it wasn't.

There's nothing complicated about upgrade cards working the same way as worded in epic games but have a range three exception in standard play. However, it wouldn't accomplish much. Parattani players often fly Manaroo in close to block and contribute to the fight. Manaroo in Dengaroo is different. Also, Palpatine is often within range because it's very important to focus fire in the first three engagements so the shuttle is often in range as well.

I don't care either way. It doesn't matter to me if they put a range restriction on upgrades or change point costs. I just don't think it'll stop the whining.

16 minutes ago, Punning Pundit said:

The good news is that we're not at that point, and there are no problems with either card, and we're not at the point where the banhammer is needed.

I remember the days when people wanted to nerf C3-P0, as that card was considered OP. Turns out: it wasn't.

I disagree. We are at that point, both cards are fundamentally broken, and the banhammer is increasingly looking like the cleanest and perhaps even only way to handle the two of them.

C-3P0 Falcons did not win this much. Dengaroo didn't win this much. I can't even remember pre-nerf Phantoms winning this much. The dominance being enjoyed by these two cards is simply unprecedented.

Fixing this metagame, if you think there's a problem, is easy. Make Attani Mindlink two points and ban Palpatine. You can still play Mindlink but it's going to cost you three more points so you can't have it all. Triple Defenders becomes the next best thing but there is no natural predator, aces, to keep them in check because auto damage makes it too much of a gamble to bring them. So people start playing more rebel stuff like Dash and Miranda and we're back to another balanced metagame.

9 minutes ago, AceWing said:

You can still play Mindlink but it's going to cost you three more points so you can't have it all.

Unless you're Old Man Fenn, in which case you just go from 94 to 97 points, shrug and nonchalantly go about your business.

Manaroo needs to go, as well, perhaps even more than Palpatine does. There's a reason not being able to do an action more than once a round is a core game rule, and letting an entire faction break that rule so casually is terrible idea.

You don't need to nerf Old Man Fenn. There's lots of ways to counter aces and Manaroo isn't an imposing ship. The reason Parattani is so good is because you have very strong firepower with a very durable shell. Asajj is brutal to chew through. You take Asajj out of the list and it's not nearly as good. Parattani is already as streamlined as it can be. Three more points kills Parattani but leaves the Mindlink and Manaroo still competitive.

Range 3 is not a fix for Attani. If anything, it's an exploitable loophole.

• Manaroo moves at the back of the formation, ends within range 3 of everyone. Team Focus!
• Asajj does a 5K out to range 4 from the team. no stress for anyone else!
• Fenn can now T-Roll or K-turn on the same turn as Asajj. Or he can do a hard-1 and still take an action.

game design is harder than it looks.

I'd rather just see an EPT that shuts down token passing or strips tokens. Make it require in arc (so we're not shutting down a play style/list, just making it more thoughtful/less easy button). Give XWings the ability to steal instead of strip and Imperial TIE/Ln's and Interceptors to remove green dice (probably just one) if there's no tokens left to strip

A couple titles and an EPT and we don't have the entire system open series going to 1 faction and 1 core list.

Or any other token denial plan you can think of... I just thought using it to also elevate weaker ships was a two birds with one stone type thing.

Unrelated: I've always though a 1 large ship limit would help too. All of the above could be packaged in a new Battle of Yavin (or Endor) campaign for XWing. Winners everywhere. Maybe toss in a Palp errata/reprint too if it went the Endor route.

I have read really really interesting solution around: Make Manaroo give away also stress tokens. This way all attani lists lists are fine , Dengaroo even gets a buff, and Manalink lists gets really nice counter -give a stress to manaroo? She wants to pass tokens around? Cool you just have 2 stresses on a ship she passed them and still one herself.

On 2/22/2017 at 9:54 PM, Vitalis said:

I have read really really interesting solution around: Make Manaroo give away also stress tokens. This way all attani lists lists are fine , Dengaroo even gets a buff, and Manalink lists gets really nice counter -give a stress to manaroo? She wants to pass tokens around? Cool you just have 2 stresses on a ship she passed them and still one herself.

That... makes Mindlink even better . Why on earth would you want to do that?

On 2/21/2017 at 11:16 PM, DR4CO said:

There's a reason not being able to do an action more than once a round is a core game rule, and letting an entire faction break that rule so casually is terrible idea.

I mean I think the real power of mindlink is not really 'hey recon specialist exists' as much as 'ptl for everyone but without the stress'. Sure stacking focus tokens is fun but not really that broken because again, recon specialist, jyn erso, rey crew...

25 minutes ago, nigeltastic said:

I mean I think the real power of mindlink is not really 'hey recon specialist exists' as much as 'ptl for everyone but without the stress'. Sure stacking focus tokens is fun but not really that broken because again, recon specialist, jyn erso, rey crew...

The crew cards are much easier to control, from a design perspective. You just need to watch which ships you give crew slots to so that you don't give the effect to ships that shouldn't get it. But near every single ship has an EPT, which makes it very hard to keep Attanni out of the hands of ships which really shouldn't have it.

Fenn's a good example; if Attanni really were just PtL for everyone and he still had to live on a single Focus token, I don't think anyone would be batting an eyelid at him. He'd still be good, but he'd need to think about when and how to go for his range 1 assaults as he couldn't simultaneously push for maximum damage and still tank the return fire on Focus + Concord/Autothrusters.

The crew cards are also much more limited in ease of use; they all require actions from the ship they're on, so stressing and blocking that ship shuts them down. You block or stress Fenn or Asajj at the moment and they still end up in your face with a Target Lock and tokens for both offence and defence.