Lots of people are calling for nerfs to bombs (in particular, bombs with the Action: header), Adv. SLAM, and Sabine. Their prevalence in the meta is a testament to how good they are.

Such a nerf must be applied carefully, however, or else bombs will by and large disappear from the tables. I think everyone would agree that, as much as possible, as many elements of the game as possible should be usable.

What if the nerf came in the form of restricting SLAM's power somewhat? I take as inspiration and precedent the wording from BoShek. Currently, the SLAM action is performed as:

"To SLAM, choose and execute a maneuver on the ship's dial. The chosen maneuver must be the same speed as the maneuver that ship executed this round. Then assign that ship a weapons disabled token."

Suppose it were instead to read,

"To SLAM, choose and execute a maneuver on the ship's dial. The chosen maneuver on the dial must be the same maneuver or adjacent to the maneuver that ship executed this round, and must be the same speed. Then assign that ship a weapons disabled token."

Thematic ideas of no longer being able to do sequential turns in opposite directions of each other aside, this would cut down on the number of positioning options SLAM ships have. Is it too slight of a nerf to have an effect? Does it give better counterplay options to Adv. SLAM bombing than what currently exists?

I would just limit Advanced Slamming to actions on your action bar.

Would need testing, but it might have the desired affect.

1 minute ago, mkevans80 said:

I would just limit Advanced Slamming to actions on your action bar.

The whole point of Advanced Slamming is for bomb dropping, though.

Wh at would the potential bomb placement array look of you had to execute the exact same manoeuvre?

(would that make it any more difficult to land 'em exactly where you want 'em?)

1 hour ago, mkevans80 said:

I would just limit Advanced Slamming to actions on your action bar.

1 hour ago, MegaSilver said:

The whole point of Advanced Slamming is for bomb dropping, though.

What if, in addition to the "Action bar" restriction, you allowed a standard "on reveal" bomb drop between the two moves*.

In that way, you still maintain the spirit of the mechanic but limit the range at which you can land a template precisely on an enemy ship (and the smaller templates for non-action bombs would require more skill, though still have a potent area of effect) - meaning there's still a chance for evasive manoeuvres by higher PS enemy if they adequately anticipated the Bomber, or have the tools to avoid a close placement.

- - - - -

* = perhaps even allowing it as a 2nd drop in the same turn (expending a 2nd bomb of course, not a freebie) - so it allows a 'carpet bomb' style of SLAM instead of the current 'dive bombing'.

(this would make any ship caught by both bombs and Sabine take a lot of pain ~ imagine Thermal+Ion+bonus damage ~ so perhaps too good, leaving us back where we started)

1 hour ago, mkevans80 said:

I would just limit Advanced Slamming to actions on your action bar.

That would be better. No point of killing bombs just because it works very good with Advanced SLAM..

1 hour ago, mkevans80 said:

I would just limit Advanced Slamming to actions on your action bar.

That is absurd. The K-wing is supposed to excel at bombing and Advanced Slam is what enables it to do it.
If you remove that, then you are removing the point of Wardens, leaving only Miranda TLT as the viable K-wing. And the next request will be to nerf Miranda's ability.

I understand that people miss their squishy aces in their glass cannon ships. But rebels needed to have a counter to them, and turrets were no longer effective with Autothrusters and Palpatine to back the aces up.

The reason why the K-wing is so popular is because it's only one of the few ships rebels have that can deal damage before being obliterated by peak damage, or arc-dodged to death, without having to use the boring Biggs crutch. (It's sad that the rebel faction is forced to use a crutch like Biggs to make most of their ships viable. I think it's about time to stop designing overpriced, clumsy, slow ship for the rebels).
Actually, they were released in Wave 7, and it was not until Sabine crew was released that bombing K-wings were considered a serious threat.

If anything, consider reworking Sabine.

The problem with the K-wing Bomber isn't that it is so good, but bombs are so much better for the K-wing than any other ship that Imperials and Scum can't play the bomb game.

I think the fix for slam should be to give it to the TIE Bomber and or the Punisher.

36 minutes ago, Hrathen said:

The problem with the K-wing Bomber isn't that it is so good, but bombs are so much better for the K-wing than any other ship that Imperials and Scum can't play the bomb game.

I think the fix for slam should be to give it to the TIE Bomber and or the Punisher.

Bombers and Punishers will get the "Minelayer Maps" upgrade next wave that will allow them to be filled to the brim with bombs and use them all before being destroyed, giving an imperial player a reason to bring a Punisher in their squad.
Alternatively, just turn Deathrain's ability into an upgrade card that you can equip on Bombers and Punishers (or a reduced version of it, just what Outmaneuver is to Wedge's ability). That would be their Advanced SLAM equivalent and greatly increase the viability of the cheapest generic bombers and punishers.

Or we can finally give Imperials the Slam action. After all they were the first ones to get it.

2 hours ago, MegaSilver said:

The whole point of Advanced Slamming is for bomb dropping, though.

Not sure if sarcasm...

The point of SLAMing is to go fast.

2 minutes ago, Archangelspiv said:

Not sure if sarcasm...

The point of SLAMing is to go fast.

I meant the upgrade card, not the technology in the lore.
Advanced SLAM is virtually useless if you only want it for actions in the action bar. For 2 points, you cannot SLAM again, so it would be focus or target lock for a ship that has a weapons disabled token and rolls a green die. You could aswell just ban the card.

SLAM is fine. Advanced SLAM is the issue.

Proposal: using Advanced SLAM gives you a stress.

Now you can 3-bank-slam-3-bank-bomb if you want - but next turn you're doing a 1 straight or 1 bank or not getting any actions, and you can't SLAM a 2-turn-2-turn to spin yourself round.

This topic is making me LOL, considering I (in jest) proposed a similar idea a couple of weeks ago...

I suggest we nerf all ships to a statline of 1/1/1/1, reduce all points costs to 5 points for a small base ship and 10 for a large base ship. Remove all named pilots and all upgrades. Remove Pilot Skill as a thing entirely. Then we really reduce the game back down to the golden era of flying well counting for everything. Balance in the force achieved.