>Punish me Harder



That's a dangerous request, Cheshire.

give it a system upgrade that can shoot two different ordnance a turn at either 0 or 1 point. Done.

18 minutes ago, Oberron said:

give it a system upgrade that can shoot two different ordnance a turn at either 0 or 1 point. Done.

Aside from being a really blunt and dull fix this runs into the issue of lacking dice mods or even the TL needed to actually use your second shot. A title which did that could work because then you'd have FCS but it's still rather hamfisted. Honestly I think any good fix is going to have to be something that increases either survivability or action economy with the former probably being the best bet but I'm coming up blank on creative ideas to make them live longer.

50 minutes ago, Princezilla said:

Aside from being a really blunt and dull fix this runs into the issue of lacking dice mods or even the TL needed to actually use your second shot. A title which did that could work because then you'd have FCS but it's still rather hamfisted. Honestly I think any good fix is going to have to be something that increases either survivability or action economy with the former probably being the best bet but I'm coming up blank on creative ideas to make them live longer.

Sometimes a hammer is the best tool. An example of such a card would be like

Once per turn, If a game effect instructs you to spend a target lock, you may ignore it.
Once per turn, after an attack with a secondary weapon, you may make another attack with a different secondary weapon.
You can not equip bombs,missiles,or torpedoes that cost "5" or more.

You get two different ordnance shots, or you get to save your TL to re-roll on one shot or if your redline you can do both.

As for survivability that is going to be difficult to justify since the ship isn't built to be maneuverable or tanky and already has some of the highest health for a small ship, its meant to deal tons o'damage and unfortunatly doesn't come close to that. Better action economy would be nice, but there is already a bit of an arms race about actions on top of actions. maybe something that lets them get a TL or focus after performing a boost action or vice versa

Some titles that are Punisher analogues of the TIE Defender titles perhaps.

Punisher/IT - You must have at least 2 empty upgrade slots. When performing a green maneuver, recover 1 shield. -3 points

Punisher/P - After you perform a primary weapon attack, you may gain a focus token and then perform an attack with a secondary weapon. 0 Points

or

Punisher/P - When you declare the target of your attack, you may acquire a target lock on the defender. When you receive a blue target lock token, assign a focus token to this ship. 0 Points

In my opinion, the bomber should have a title that helps it bomb better / have cheaper bombs and the Punisher should have title that enables it to use torps and missiles better, thus separating them and given them unique roles.

So perhaps the Punisher should have:

TIE/Punisher - Title - 0 points
During the deployment phase but before any ships have been deployed, you may exchange any upgrade cards with the {torp} or {missile} symbol you have equipped with another upgrade card of the same type of equal or fewer squad points.

Interdictor Targeting Matrix - System Slot - 0 points
TIE Punisher Only

When attacking with a weapon with the {torp} or {missile} symbol, after rolling attack dice, you may change 2 dice results to a {hit}.

(Essentially giving them a better Guidance Chip, so they can take Long Range Scanners)

TIE/sa Bomber - Title - 0 points
Your upgrade loses the {torp} and {missile} symbols from your upgrade bar and gain a {bomb} symbol to your upgrade bar.

At the start of the game, place 1 extra munitons token on all upgrade cards with the {bomb} symbol.

Specialist Payload - Mod - 0 Points
During the deployment phase but before any ships have been deployed, you may exchange any upgrade cards with the {bomb} symbol you have equipped with another upgrade card of the same type of equal or fewer squad points.

16 hours ago, FatherTurin said:

I have nothing constructive to add to this conversation, just came here to say:

dat thread title tho....

I thought the title was referring to the cheater from worlds needing moare punishment.

16 hours ago, FatherTurin said:

14 hours ago, Princezilla said:

Aside from being a really blunt and dull fix this runs into the issue of lacking dice mods or even the TL needed to actually use your second shot. A title which did that could work because then you'd have FCS but it's still rather hamfisted. Honestly I think any good fix is going to have to be something that increases either survivability or action economy with the former probably being the best bet but I'm coming up blank on creative ideas to make them live longer.

A missile and a torpedo would do the trick with the target lock, if only chimps could be used multiple times per turn.

The problem is gaining a target lock against the enemy that you end up pointing at. Unguided Rockets fixes that particular problem for Bombers, at the cost of using up their action to focus or working focus tokens into your squadron. The Punishers were slightly overpriced to begin with, not really the best platform for Unguided Rockets. If you are going to put a 3 dice ship on the table, the bomber does it 5 points cheaper with better agility.

Maybe something thats lets them recover shields when they discard munitions or munition tokens?

I've always liked the idea of a title and then an upgrade to use in a munitions slot as a potential fix.

Title: All out Assault (1 point)

(Tie Punisher Only)

When attacking with a Missile or Torpedo secondary weapon you may add an equivalent number of attack dice up to the value of your primary weapon attack. You may change one dice result to a hit (or a crit if your pilot skill is 5 or higher)

Enhanced firing coils (4 points)

(Tie Punisher only) (limited)

Takes up a double bomb, missile or Torpedo slot.

When attacking with your primary weapon you may roll two additional attack dice.

The idea with the above is if you want to take the ship barebones with no munitions you can buff it to a 4 dice attack for 4 points.

If you are running it as a missile or torpedo ship then you are getting better value for money out of your ordinance and either increasing the effectiveness of guidance chips or allowing you to take another mod in place of them

The upgrade wouldn't stack with the title as you are adding dice to your roll rather than making it a primary attack of 4 cutting down on any crazy op alpha strikes.

Limiting both to the punisher prevents any inadvertent buffs to other ships.

On 5/16/2017 at 4:35 PM, MaxPower said:

Starviper, Khiraxz, Scum Z-95 and most of all the U-Wing beg to differ.

The scum Z95 is great. The PS1 with feedback array is superb during an ace heavy meta, VI Ndru with a missile and scavenger crane is a superb high PS ordnance threat whilst deadeye Kaato is surprisingly good at catching opponents out. All at low point values.

On 5/18/2017 at 11:08 AM, Xehl said:

I've always liked the idea of a title and then an upgrade to use in a munitions slot as a potential fix.

Title: All out Assault (1 point)

(Tie Punisher Only)

When attacking with a Missile or Torpedo secondary weapon you may add an equivalent number of attack dice up to the value of your primary weapon attack. You may change one dice result to a hit (or a crit if your pilot skill is 5 or higher)

Enhanced firing coils (4 points)

(Tie Punisher only) (limited)

Takes up a double bomb, missile or Torpedo slot.

When attacking with your primary weapon you may roll two additional attack dice.

The idea with the above is if you want to take the ship barebones with no munitions you can buff it to a 4 dice attack for 4 points.

If you are running it as a missile or torpedo ship then you are getting better value for money out of your ordinance and either increasing the effectiveness of guidance chips or allowing you to take another mod in place of them

The upgrade wouldn't stack with the title as you are adding dice to your roll rather than making it a primary attack of 4 cutting down on any crazy op alpha strikes.

Limiting both to the punisher prevents any inadvertent buffs to other ships.

The first one is interesting but has the potential to break hard, the second one is just not going to work. It completely negates the original concept of the ship and unlike the shuttle title has no basis in the source material. It also has no synergy with either of the current named pilots and has no thematic tie in. Plus it's either going to be really overpowered or not fix anything, most likely the later. The Punisher's biggest issue is that it doesn't live long enough to use all it's payload so making it's base firepower equivalent to most torpedoes doesn't really do much to fix that other than make it a bit less of a points sink.

3 hours ago, Princezilla said:

The first one is interesting but has the potential to break hard, the second one is just not going to work. It completely negates the original concept of the ship and unlike the shuttle title has no basis in the source material. It also has no synergy with either of the current named pilots and has no thematic tie in. Plus it's either going to be really overpowered or not fix anything, most likely the later. The Punisher's biggest issue is that it doesn't live long enough to use all it's payload so making it's base firepower equivalent to most torpedoes doesn't really do much to fix that other than make it a bit less of a points sink.

I see your point about the upgrade, I had been basically approaching it as turning it into a mini large ship if that makes sense. If you were aiming more for synergy perhaps a systems slot upgrade.

Advanced Sensor suite 3 points

you may acquire a target lock on up to 2 ships

At the start of the combat phase you may acquire a free target lock on any ship at range 1-3 and inside your firing arc.

works well from a munitions point of view, allows the punisher to carry out an action other than TL and allows the lowered pilot skill variants a chance to get their munitions off.

5 hours ago, Xehl said:

I see your point about the upgrade, I had been basically approaching it as turning it into a mini large ship if that makes sense. If you were aiming more for synergy perhaps a systems slot upgrade.

Advanced Sensor suite 3 points

you may acquire a target lock on up to 2 ships

At the start of the combat phase you may acquire a free target lock on any ship at range 1-3 and inside your firing arc.

works well from a munitions point of view, allows the punisher to carry out an action other than TL and allows the lowered pilot skill variants a chance to get their munitions off.

I'd say just the second one and make it a title so people don't have their system slot build locked, doesn't help Deathrain and bomber builds though.

On 5/17/2017 at 1:35 PM, Vulf said:

The problem is gaining a target lock against the enemy that you end up pointing at. Unguided Rockets fixes that particular problem for Bombers, at the cost of using up their action to focus or working focus tokens into your squadron. The Punishers were slightly overpriced to begin with, not really the best platform for Unguided Rockets. If you are going to put a 3 dice ship on the table, the bomber does it 5 points cheaper with better agility.

Not to mention the fact that they are both point sinks and laser magnets. You pay the points for all those slots the ship gets but the reality is that the Punisher will likely just get one missile or Toro off before it's blown out of the sky.

What if Punishers could double-tap secondary weapons shots every other round and fire at ships out of arc akin to Dantels with the exception it's only with missiles, not torpedoes?

15 minutes ago, clanofwolves said:

What if Punishers could double-tap secondary weapons shots every other round and fire at ships out of arc akin to Dantels with the exception it's only with missiles, not torpedoes?

I think just the first one of those would be a good fix, the every other turn thing keeps it from completely breaking particularly if they get a weapons disabled token after the second shot. Though in that case then you would need a separate fix for ones like Deathrain who focus on bombs.

On 5/16/2017 at 3:35 PM, MaxPower said:

Starviper, Khiraxz, Scum Z-95 and most of all the U-Wing beg to differ.

With the latest "Guns for Hire" preview, it's almost as if you were on the X-Wing development team. Nice!

15 minutes ago, Darth Onyx said:

With the latest "Guns for Hire" preview, it's almost as if you were on the X-Wing development team. Nice!

Which means that the Punisher is officially the Queen of the bottom tier.

It's ok Punisher, I still love you.

How about Primed Thrusters for Target Locking along with a moderate point reduction and the ability to combine LWF and Guidance Chips?

However talking about Punishers, I was thinking about giving Deathrain a go again, so I tried to put him in the best possible list:

"Quickdraw" (29)
A Score to Settle (0)
Fire-Control System (2)
Lightweight Frame (2)
Special Ops Training (0)

"Backdraft" (27)
Adaptability (0)
Fire-Control System (2)
Lightweight Frame (2)
Special Ops Training (0)

"Deathrain" (26)
Collision Detector (0)
Extra Munitions (2)
Seismic Charges (2)
Conner Net (4)
Lightweight Frame (2)

Total: 100

View in Yet Another Squad Builder

Not having points for any tech upgrades or Elites hurts Backdraft maybe too much, though. Deathrain can't be reduced in points reasonably however. So I am kind of stuck with this.

There is a local guy that loves the Tie Punisher. He doesn't usually do tournaments, but he played last month with a bunch of guys doing tournament prep with their tournament lists. He beat 4 out of 5 of them, including Blake, who is listed in that ranked X-wing players thing. Blake came in 23rd at Worlds. These guys aren't bad players, but they lost to a list that had at least one Tie Punisher in it.

I don't think they are horrible, but I know people don't usually play them. I also think the next wave will have 3 things for them. One is Unguided Rockets (yes, that can also be used by Bombers). Another is the Bomb System thing in the H-6. The third is the other Bomb thing in the H-6. There already was Light Weight Frames that also helps it.

It will also help when the next Nerfing happens and the power spike of the last OP ones are taken down a notch.

i think it's unassuming nature helps it more than anything, most ignore it as "it's just a Punisher" problem is once it's targeted it's days are numbered. Plus it's biggest issue is any role it can fill the bomber does equally well for less

I think some more pilots with abilities, will help it to a degree, some form of points management title card that allows you to load it up for a reduced cost would help as well without buffing the bomber at the same time.

50 minutes ago, Xehl said:

i think it's unassuming nature helps it more than anything, most ignore it as "it's just a Punisher" problem is once it's targeted it's days are numbered. Plus it's biggest issue is any role it can fill the bomber does equally well for less

I think some more pilots with abilities, will help it to a degree, some form of points management title card that allows you to load it up for a reduced cost would help as well without buffing the bomber at the same time.

The thing is no one ever ignores it, the opportunity to drop it before it can get off all it's expensive munitions is far to attractive. Any advantage that it might have had over the Bomber due to the extra slots or boost is negated by the lack of EPTs on all pilots, which makes it really hard to get dice mods if you actually use the boost particularly with having to choose between LWF and GC, this on top of the terrible durability to cost issue. AS EI Deathrain can be fun but you pay out the *** for it and it's really unlikely to make those points back before it gets dropped. The big issue though is that anything it can do the Bomber can do for much less points.

Someone proposed giving it access to reenforce which would help a good bit with the durability issue but it'd still need something to boost it's offense to make up for the lack of EPTs.