Cord-Nate-in... Large Ships : wuz in them Movies... and Cartoon... and Novels.

Why you do'n wrong FFG?

3 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

"not adapted to a very specific and restricted meta" is just a more wordy way of saying "currently weak".

Nope; saying that a tool is not adapted to some really specific task is different than calling it unefficient as a tool.

Just now, Giledhil said:

Nope; saying a tool is not adapted to some really specific task is different than calling it unefficient.

When the particular task is 'efficiency' it kind of is though.

But again: what difference does it make to you?

People calling it weak doesn't stop you playing it or stop you enjoying it.

53 minutes ago, Hexdot said:

Correct. But we have no small mobile plataforms or hand held weapons in this game...

Say hello to my little friend.

4 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

When the particular task is 'efficiency' it kind of is though.

But again: what difference does it make to you?

People calling it weak doesn't stop you playing it or stop you enjoying it.

The task is not "efficiency" but "adaptablility to a really narrow meta game".

The exemple of Soontir was a good one : a ship that IS efficient, but not adapted to the meta. You can't call that weak.

What difference does it make? I'm just tired of seeing a ****load of new whining posts a day saying that relatively new ships (U-wing or Striker, for exemple) are "bad" and calling for even more power creep for each new extension so that it is "competition viable".

2 minutes ago, Giledhil said:

I'm just tired of seeing a ****load of new whining posts a day saying that relatively new ships (U-wing or Striker, for exemple) are "bad" and calling for even more power creep for each new extension so that it is "competition viable".

Jump... out...of that ring! I did, so have many others.

I used to get so mad over this stuff... NOT ANY MORE.

11 minutes ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

Reality: they are weak.

I mean, since their release, we've had what, at least a dozen big Regionals and a half-dozen huge System Opens and precisely how many U-Wings making it into the Top 32? I'd wager a guess the number is mighty close to zero.

I got 22nd in Sacramento regionals, needed 1 more damage on a quickdraw to be 5-1 and make top 16 cut with HEFF/BIGGS/ (X2) TLT HWKS

Uwings aren't bad, people just want them to be like Brobots, Jumpmasters, Lancers and they are not. They are the rebels Lambda, a better wave 10 version, if the lambda were made today.

What the Uwings are good at?

Creating Space - Its a big base that is cheap. Keep it between the enemy and some TLTs (or Dash with HLC like what was mentioned above) to ensure range 2. Heff is a solid choice here as if the enemy bumps him, he gets actions like Jyn Ersa to toss TLTs focus tokens.

Support Crew - Operations Specialist - 26pts to have this large ship with a 3 attk supply focus tokens anytime the dice gods spit on you. And from the complaint threads around here, missing happens a lot. Just the other day in one round I was supplied three focus tokens in one round thanks to op spec. I spend my focus on attack and I either do damage or get a focus back in return. This is mindlink level of action economy, for 26pts.

Support Crew - Inspired Recruit - Get those T70s and PTL off tallon rolls with pattern analyzer then have Cassian wipe out the stress to do it all again for 28pts! This is practically the cost of Biggs and you are getting 8HP and a large base. Remove both stress from the stresshog, and have it perform Kturns.

Cassian Andor (27)
Draw Their Fire (1)
Collision Detector (0)
Operations Specialist (3)
Inspiring Recruit (1)
Pivot Wing (0)

Gold Squadron Pilot (18)
Twin Laser Turret (6)
R3-A2 (2)
BTL-A4 Y-Wing (0)

Lothal Rebel (35)
Fire-Control System (2)
Autoblaster Turret (2)
Hera Syndulla (1)
Rey (2)

Total: 100

View in Yet Another Squad Builder

Op spec worked great, as focus tokens were never wasted, tossing them to the ghost to save with Rey, or give stresshog tokens for its attacks. Stresshog and Ghost are huge threats, so Cassian was left alone, supply tokens and removing stress, and DTF saved like three crits from the stresshog.

6 hours ago, Stay On The Leader said:

There's nothing at all wrong with the U-Wing, there's just not anything especially right with it either. It's pretty much the most vanilla and average ship I've ever seen.

I think people rapidly worked out that the 0 k-turn is pretty crap, though.

I'd love to go back and find the 'OMG 4 U-Wings are breaking X-Wing!!!' thread from a few months ago and laugh in its face.

Before the come back of 3U boat, 4 U-wings were nice to fly.

5 hours ago, GrimmyV said:

Did they even watch the film!

No, on account that the film didn't exist when they made this box. They did fairly well considering.

4 hours ago, Joe Boss Red Seven said:

"Why are the U Wings so weak?"

EASY Brah... FFG screwed up. They should have a 4 dice HEAVY ION CANNON that causes full rolled damage and inflicts 2 ion tokens with target lock that goes out to range five and has a 90 degree arc on each side. Cost ten points... Who-Rah!

Just come to my house... I'll fix you up, FFG don't run-stuff here.

Well, I mean, besides your... character of being so enthusiastic your idea also would never make it past LFL, on account of being completely disconnected from the universe. Because Bistan isn't using a "HEAVY ION CANNON" he's using a heavy repeating blaster with an ion function. It's for troops and light ground vehicles. It cripples the hell out of an AT-ACT because it has repulsor fields in it's legs to prevent the additional weight from heavy cargo from damaging or slowing it down - sudden loss of which causes a spectacular failure. There's no reference in any of the R1 material to actually mounting normal space weapons (which can be pretty big) on the side of the U, only places for troops to mount their heavy personal weapons, not that FFG precisely could know that as reference guides were being written while the box was being planned and shipped.

tbh they already have a tractor beam that does damage in the Lancer, given the weapons the Uwing used in the movie it wouldnt be unusual for it to have an Ion weapon of similar behavior.
"When attacking with your primary weapon, if your attack hits and the defender is at range 1-2 in your firing arc they receive one ion token"

Though the pivot wing kinda ate the title slot.

9 minutes ago, Vineheart01 said:

tbh they already have a tractor beam that does damage in the Lancer, given the weapons the Uwing used in the movie it wouldnt be unusual for it to have an Ion weapon of similar behavior.
"When attacking with your primary weapon, if your attack hits and the defender is at range 1-2 in your firing arc they receive one ion token"

Though the pivot wing kinda ate the title slot.

Well, I'm about to make an argument that people think the U-Wing should be "strong" because of a scene where the U-Wing doesn't actually do much of anything besides fly straight - all the work is Bistan; his gun, his skill, fluff tied to him. Now, I completely accept maybe Bistan should be a more creative card than what he is but FFG probably didn't have access to a lot of Bistan scenes (maybe because of special effects) and so all they know is he's a guy who makes stuff explode good - so he adds crits.

The Shadowcaster ability is another thing rooted in background stuff I presume LFL gave FFG on the Lancer - because it has a similar ability in the RPG - it has a sophisticated fire control and grouping mechanism so the pilot can pull the trigger to fire the turreted guns and the tractor beam mount a the the same time basically.

I have more thoughts on this U-Wing discussion which maybe might get people to think about this sort of context a little more, but I need some breakfast first.

Alright, so, I read this topic and it gave me some interesting thoughts - but probably ones that will dissent from most people here.

So first, I want to preface with that while I'm a "gameplay > fluff" guy, I usually mean that in the sense of allowing FFG to make sensible adjustments to "hard and fast" numbers or approximations on ships to translate them into a game space and keep them unique, interesting and functional. However, we also need to accept and understand that Lucasfilm Licensing (LFL) has to look over and approve everything FFG prints. Now, we don't know how tight a leash they run or how closely they pay attention - but we do know they have certain standards. They provide the measurements for the scale of the minis for instance. And given the secrecy involved in the creation of the U-Wing and Striker packs to get them out in a timely release, they probably work pretty close at times. So, while they obviously offer leeway where the material allows, anything which departs too far from what material LF has already put out, or knows what direction they're going in will not be allowed.

An example of this is the U-Wing's torpedo slots. This is not listed as a standard armament, nor do any of the U-Wings which appear in R1 use or mention torpedoes. But that background also mentions Rebels sometimes convert them to gunships. Now, while FFG occasionally plays pretty fast and loose with "custom" mods/slots on ships (coughJumpmasterscough) in the case of the U it's really an inconsequential addition to include it in the baseline. Somebody probably mentioned Us are supposed to be a little customizable and the easiest way to add a weapon which fits Rebels pretty good is slap some torps. This is kind of the opposite of the Striker situation, where Strikers don't use or mention bombs anywhere but the reference books FFG doesn't actually have access to and so nobody mentioned it to them.

Anyway, so, let me roll back up to the premise. "Why are U-Wings so weak?" So 1( I'd argue they aren't weak. They can be kitted out for pretty efficient play, you can fly four 8 health, 2 AGI ships which have 3 ATK and FCS that's some pretty good efficiency. It's not going to out-pace ships designed to kill things, though. Which is point 2. Why should U-Wings be "strong"? The U-Wing is a ship with multiple models kind of inbetween a civilian and government spec. It's a long range ship designated a Fighter/Support Craft. So it can take care of itself in combat by engaging other spacecraft, but it's not an interceptor or an attack ship. It offers support, and while specific language may not have been given to FFG probably words to that effect would. They ask "so what does the U-Wing do" and they get back this kind of stuff. It can fight, but that's only like 50% of what it does. So why do we assume the U-Wing should be "strong"? Well, it's probably because of that one cool scene FFG probably didn't get to see. But, like I said above that's not really the U-Wing doing that. That's Bistan, and Bistan's cool gun. The U-Wing obviously can mount door guns, but specifically, that's a thing Bistan has and likes to use. Now, you can also see above on my feelings about maybe Bistan the card doing more.

So, what did FFG design the U-Wing to do, based on what they are told and can assume it does? Well, it can shoot, they went the extra mile to give it 3 ATK and some torps. But it's also a "support" ship. In this case, this is accomplished via it having crew slots for "support" crew, and also it has some utility to do a non combat support thing in Blocking. It has a pilot centered around blocking, the Cassian crew card helps blocking among other things, if you combine Jyn with Heff that's synergy with blocking, all the pilots have relatively low PS, etc. Now we come to why the U-Wing is a large ship. Aside from pragmatic considerations of the wingspan the large base makes it work as a blocker. You've got more space to block with. You can access ideal "blocking" modifications only available to large ships, like Ion Projector, APL and Tactical Jammer. But you also can't take VT - which even with Large ships that might make too easy. Also, the U-Wing can do stress relieve. Cassian pilot heals stress, and Inspiring Recruit comes with the U-Wing to remove extra stress - a good intrinsic to the U-Wing's moveset. Bodhi helps with target locks too, a constant complexity people try and get around.

But, this still leaves open the "modularity" suggested in the background, which may have been communicated to FFG. (Again, ask the question "what does the U-Wing do" even in early stages you might get back "we see it mostly as carrying troops around, but they might also use it for gunships or medevac and stuff"). To this end, I think FFG put it all in the upgrade slots. System and two crew gives you amazing flexibility, especially as rebels. You can't really kit out a lot of U-Wings the same, which might be the point, but you can do some interesting stuff with it. You could make it tankier, you could throw in cards like Tactician and Baze Malbus to try and throw some stress around, you could also throw in Gunner to double-stress a single target. You can try some stupid stuff with Gunner/Baze and Captain Rex. You can throw Bistan in there for cheap crit mods, the various Ghost crew, like Kanan to boost stress removal. You can do some jank, jank stuff with say, Heff+Sabine+Chopper+EM and Action Bombs. Block, drop a bomb, next turn just 2 white away. You're a large base so you should get some clearance out of that. Now, that's pretty weird and situational, so the U-Wing will probably never have a lot of widespread success using a single build, unless Rebels get a good universally applicable crew, but I think it's supposed to be really flexible to let you kind of fly your own thing. While not necessarily optimal, it is possible, and as seen in this thread some people work with it. FFG isn't going to design ships to keep doing the same things, so sometimes you have to kind of take a look at what the different angles on the ship are. Think about what it can or could do, not just what you want it to do.

One last thing, I also saw some talk of including Coordinate on the U. I'm gonna say, I don't think that's inherently appropriate - the U-Wing is not a command ship, it's a support craft which mostly moves people it doesn't necessarily have the setup to do that sort of stuff. But, on the other hand, given how the Rebels tend to ghetto a lot of ships into doing things they don't normally, I do think it would be cool if they had access to say, a crew card or something that allowed their ships to gain the Coordinate action, to represent them using something as a command ship. Large Ship Only, of course.

7 hours ago, Stay On The Leader said:

'Iconic'?

You mean the ship that featured in 37 seconds of screen time before crashing into the nearest rock?

It was the ship that carried the main characters everywhere but Scarif. And there was one there, too. It is the Millennium Falcon of RO. How can it not be iconic?

2 hours ago, Giledhil said:

So not being part of the really narrow high level competition meta makes a ship weak?

Welcome to Tier 4 gameplay. Beer and chips are on the coffee table. Do not congregate by the lavatories. Enjoy your flight.

The real problem seems to be FFG being required to make models from new movies BEFORE the movies are released, thus the enevitable mischaracterized ships and pilots we've seen the last two years.

But then the T-65 appeared in 1977 and FFG still hasn't 'fixed' it. Any hope for a Partisan expansion with Blue Leader and K-2SO cards?

This is game was built on hope after all.

GUNBOAT

3 hours ago, Giledhil said:

Nope; saying that a tool is not adapted to some really specific task is different than calling it unefficient as a tool.

For a ship to be good in X-Wing, it has to be able to routinely make top cuts. For that to happen, it must perform well in general and have very few poor matchups. At this point, Soontir just doesn't fit that bill; he's not a good ship. Take away Stresshog and he has to deal with K-Wings. Take away K-Wings and has to deal with Fangs (Fenn's monster offense pushes damage through on Soontir and Teroch makes him a sitting duck). Take away Fangs and he has to deal with Defenders, which win the race of plinking damage through. Take away Defenders and he has to deal with Painbot and Feedback and APLs...

At this point, Soontir is no longer good. He's Tier 2. He has too many counters, and even if he didn't, there are too many ships out there that can do the same job better. There's a difference between being out of the meta and being power creeped out of the game, and the latter is what has happened to most ships recently.

Has anyone proxied Wookie Commandos in a BSP? at 24pts, all in, it seems like a pretty cheap boost to the U-wing, head and shoulders above FCS. 2 greens with a dedicated focus for defense is not too shabby. FCS, after all, suffers when put on lumbering low ps ships who rely more on attacks of opportunity...

Something like this maybe?... Dash wouldn't say no to two decent big base friendlies...

Blue Squadron Pathfinder (24) U-Wing (23), Wookie Commandos (1), Pivot Wing (0)

Blue Squadron Pathfinder (24) U-Wing (23), Wookie Commandos (1), Pivot Wing (0)

Dash Rendar (52) YT-2400 Freighter (36), Lone Wolf (2), Heavy Laser Cannon (7), Rey (2), Outrider (5)

1 hour ago, Darth Meanie said:

It was the ship that carried the main characters everywhere but Scarif. And there was one there, too. It is the Millennium Falcon of RO. How can it not be iconic?

The U-Wing is just a taxi, like the Lambda.

The Millenium Falcon is an ICONIC YT-1300, the Outrider is an ICONIC YT-2400. Slave 1 is an ICONIC Firespray. The YT-1300, 2400, Firespray... are not iconic ships, they are generic ships.. Those flown by iconic pilots, that have played pivotal roles in the films and EU are iconic ships.

The U-wing, sadly, isn't an iconic ship... the same as Red 5 isn't, only it's pilot. Black One is an ICONIC T-70, because it's flown by the "best" pilot in the Resistance, it is specially painted and he's the only pilot (thus far) that flies it. As for Bodhi, why does he need an EPT? He's just an Imperial Shuttle (cargo shuttle) pilot.. that's all he is.

11 minutes ago, boomaster said:

The U-Wing is just a taxi, like the Lambda.

The Millenium Falcon is an ICONIC YT-1300, the Outrider is an ICONIC YT-2400. Slave 1 is an ICONIC Firespray. The YT-1300, 2400, Firespray... are not iconic ships, they are generic ships.. Those flown by iconic pilots, that have played pivotal roles in the films and EU are iconic ships.

The U-wing, sadly, isn't an iconic ship... the same as Red 5 isn't, only it's pilot. Black One is an ICONIC T-70, because it's flown by the "best" pilot in the Resistance, it is specially painted and he's the only pilot (thus far) that flies it. As for Bodhi, why does he need an EPT? He's just an Imperial Shuttle (cargo shuttle) pilot.. that's all he is.

From the dictionary:

2 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

From the dictionary:

You are using 3, I am using 2.

I think you'll find, before you dive off down this rabbit hole of who can find things on the web the fastest.

2 and 3... are really, pretty much the same thing.

The problem is that the U-Wing can't have a title to provide us with an iconic ship (Call sign Rogue 1) because it already has a title card.

FFG Could have included a second title card "Rogue One - 1 point. You may equip the pivot wing title card in addition to this card. At the beginning of the activation phase you may flip the PIVOT WING card. "

So you could flip the card twice, with one ship but you would be able to stop and turn whilst retaining the 2 defence dice. Or you could flip the card after your maneuver as normal but retain the ability to react by flipping if required in the next activation phase.

7 minutes ago, boomaster said:

I think you'll find, before you dive off down this rabbit hole of who can find things on the web the fastest.

2 and 3... are really, pretty much the same thing.

The problem is that the U-Wing can't have a title to provide us with an iconic ship (Call sign Rogue 1) because it already has a title card.

FFG Could have included a second title card "Rogue One - 1 point. You may equip the pivot wing title card in addition to this card. At the beginning of the activation phase you may flip the PIVOT WING card. "

So you could flip the card twice, with one ship but you would be able to stop and turn whilst retaining the 2 defence dice. Or you could flip the card after your maneuver as normal but retain the ability to react by flipping if required in the next activation phase.

Mmm. Seems to me you are using a definition of uniqueness, whereas I am using a definition of well-known, which does not necessarily imply uniqueness.

3 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

Mmm. Seems to me you are using a definition of uniqueness, whereas I am using a definition of well-known, which does not necessarily imply uniqueness.

Agreed, how many Millenium Falcons are there?

Or, to put it another way.. Would the YT-1300 be iconic if it hadn't been Han's ship in the trilogy (of 4 parts), if he'd been flying something else but there had been, say... 5 YT's in episode IV (for whatever reason) and they'd done something significant. Which ship would have been truly iconic? The ship which made the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs or the... the design of the 5 freighters which... umm... crippled a star destroyer?

5 minutes ago, boomaster said:

Agreed, how many Millenium Falcons are there?

*ooohh, this has got to be a trick question. . . *

E. All of the above.

Why didn't the Uwing get coordinate? Give it a Uwing only mod for a couple points that gives coordinate?

5 minutes ago, RittsMJ said:

Why didn't the Uwing get coordinate? Give it a Uwing only mod for a couple points that gives coordinate?

Cuz FFG had not fully committed to giving away all the cool Epic abilities to little bitty ships yet.