5 hours ago, ovinomanc3r said:

FFG nerfed Drasnighta

They did.

Squall may be the only way to keep the Nose-punch Viable, now... I honestly havn't had the table time (or access to a 3' space that wouldn't be immediately dived on by a Toddler) to measure out to see if it works with, say, Corruptor or FC/FCT Bombers under the new rules.

Which, y'know, I guess is okay overall. It was a Stretchy, Gamey, Psychological Warfare thing... If you want to do it, you'll still take Squall to do it.

I mean. Don't get me wrong. I'm a little proud of it... It is, in all reality, completely and utterly an unintended side-effect of the Rhymer nerf... I'm not worth the time to Nerf

But hey, I can feel good about it. Nose-Punch was a call of fame, and a point of pride to me

Rhymer is now defensive.....

Leave him in a bomber ball, any comes into black range of your ships is within Rhymer range. Undodgeable.

His range effect is reduced, but he's still value for the points. If nothing else, he remains enough of a threat for him to be considered a soft escort. Best case, you get shots off on a ship you wouldn't have made range on normally. Worst case, you get engaged by a big anti-squadron ball, and they spend effort taking him out because they can't ignore him, leaving other aces intact.

If you place a squad touching your ship, Rhymer can barely stay out of engagement and still attack the ship. Move your squad half an inch away and you should be able to catch every squadron trying to bomb at close range.

I really don't see a use for Rhymer anymore because of that. Maybe with Rogues but they tend to be quite expensive.

1 hour ago, Undeadguy said:

If you place a squad touching your ship, Rhymer can barely stay out of engagement and still attack the ship. Move your squad half an inch away and you should be able to catch every squadron trying to bomb at close range.

I really don't see a use for Rhymer anymore because of that. Maybe with Rogues but they tend to be quite expensive.

Yep,

And close range is range 1 + range 2, the range 2 band is not sufficient in width for 2 squadron bases, without one being in the edge of range 1, which means you can place a screen at the edge of range 2 from your ship, allowing Rhymer and co to be in range for QLT. Assuming they have an intel squad with them.

Rhymer went from being a "auto" include on bomber builds, to not getting used. Not a good change, if the concept behind was to make a choice between Rhymer and others, they failed miserably.

They could have : When Activated by a Squadron Command, Major Rhymer and a number of bombers equal to the activating ships squad command value, may shoot at medium range. (Then you have 1-6 max squadrons, they have to be activated, so no more massive threat range where they could sit and not even need an activation and still shoot in the squadron phase.)

Or : Squadron phase only : Major Rhymer can pick up to 2 other squadrons at range 1, they may shoot at squadrons at medium range if they lack the keyword : Bomber, or at ships at medium range if they have the keyword : Bomber (a total rework, based on his feeding targeting data to the 2 squadrons he picks.)

Or a complete rework : Major Rhymer and any friendly squadrons at distance 1, when attacking a ship the Defender may not spend Redirect Defense Token(s). (No range boost at all.)

16 minutes ago, TheEasternKing said:

Yep,

And close range is range 1 + range 2, the range 2 band is not sufficient in width for 2 squadron bases, without one being in the edge of range 1, which means you can place a screen at the edge of range 2 from your ship, allowing Rhymer and co to be in range for QLT. Assuming they have an intel squad with them.

Rhymer went from being a "auto" include on bomber builds, to not getting used. Not a good change, if the concept behind was to make a choice between Rhymer and others, they failed miserably.

They could have : When Activated by a Squadron Command, Major Rhymer and a number of bombers equal to the activating ships squad command value, may shoot at medium range. (Then you have 1-6 max squadrons, they have to be activated, so no more massive threat range where they could sit and not even need an activation and still shoot in the squadron phase.)

Or : Squadron phase only : Major Rhymer can pick up to 2 other squadrons at range 1, they may shoot at squadrons at medium range if they lack the keyword : Bomber, or at ships at medium range if they have the keyword : Bomber (a total rework, based on his feeding targeting data to the 2 squadrons he picks.)

Or a complete rework : Major Rhymer and any friendly squadrons at distance 1, when attacking a ship the Defender may not spend Redirect Defense Token(s). (No range boost at all.)

They could have changed him so squads can shoot within medium range instead of at . That would have cut his range down by the size of a squad base but still allow him to be used beyond close.

I like the nerf but dislike it at the same time. It makes it more difficult to take down GH now, but I also don't have to worry about Rhymer anymore.

29 minutes ago, TheEasternKing said:

a complete rework : Major Rhymer and any friendly squadrons at distance 1, when attacking a ship the Defender may not spend Redirect Defense Token(s). (No range boost at all.)

I like that idea.

I played my first Empire vs Empire match with the FAQ updates, and neither side chose Ryhmer. A change was obviously needed, as Rhymer was an auto-include in every Empire list with squads, but I feel they missed a big opportunity to address the squadron CLUSTER**** issue this game has, and which makes games take twice as long as they should.

In our match, each side had 9 squads and we had every keyword in the game except Cloak and Snipe. ...... The game took forever to play (more than 2.5 hours) and I'm 100% sure it was entirely due to neither side having Rhymer, resulting in squadron battles occurring within range 1 of multiple ships. 18 squads surrounding 2-5 ships a turn made for an extremely painful maintenance experience, for both moving ships and moving and adjusting squad dials/sliders. This is with the wonderful washer system, which helps a LOT! This rarely happened with medium-range Rhymer. The squad battles were often far enough away from ships not to impede on ship moving too much. I'm not joking, almost every ship move we made required moving 2-10 squads out of the way. Not good.

Uhg. I like that Ryhmer was nerfed, as squads were/are way too strong in the game, but now my desire to play squads is almost entirely gone, due to the extreme amount of overhead in managing them on the battlefield. It's not good when you spend 50%+ of your time fiddling with components instead of thinking about strategy/tactics.

This is only going to get worse now that Gallent Haven is much more powerful with RhymerJr, and GH was plenty powerful before.

On 21.6.2017 at 8:06 AM, JJs Juggernaut said:

Don't feel bad about asking for definitions of the slang we use here; we do it to save time, but are more than happy to explain them if need be!

I think that this is the whole point. If you always felt taking Rhymer was better, it stands to reason that he was the better choice. I know that's a little bit of hyperbole, since I haven't used Rhymer all that much as of late, but when you are building and Imperial bomber fleet, Rhymer was an auto include, and I'm not sure that's something we want in regards to fleet building diversity.

Hm. Is relay nowadays an auto include? Or virtually, if not literally, an auto include?

Thats my concern. No nerf removes that dilemma, no nerf changes that a simply 18 point ship influences the game so strongly from the edge of the universe.

Yes, I know, I have a relay obsession...

4 minutes ago, NebulonB said:

Hm. Is relay nowadays an auto include? Or virtually, if not literally, an auto include?

Thats my concern. No nerf removes that dilemma, no nerf changes that a simply 18 point ship influences the game so strongly from the edge of the universe.

Yes, I know, I have a relay obsession...

I don't feel relay is auto include, but I really like having strategic...

25 minutes ago, Darthain said:

I don't feel relay is auto include, but I really like having strategic...

Yes... in general I value Strategic more than Relay. For the most part I like quality activations rather quantity activation of squadrons, Relay can rarely do that very well.

3 hours ago, jorgen_cab said:

Yes... in general I value Strategic more than Relay. For the most part I like quality activations rather quantity activation of squadrons, Relay can rarely do that very well.

Agree

4 hours ago, NebulonB said:

Hm. Is relay nowadays an auto include? Or virtually, if not literally, an auto include?

Thats my concern. No nerf removes that dilemma, no nerf changes that a simply 18 point ship influences the game so strongly from the edge of the universe.

Yes, I know, I have a relay obsession...

For rebels you take a VCX for strategic because taking enough of them for meaningful relay eats too much into your cap. For imperials relay works, but is still an investment. That is why you see Jendon all the time (he keeps relay) and almost never see Hera (she loses strategic, and even her token relay to boot. But seriously, if she kept strategic you would literally see her in every Rebel fleet). But Imperial flotillas don't cost 18 points, they are 23. So this statement doesn't quite work. It really costs you 38 (23+15) or 48 (18+15+15) to get the relay gimmick to work. At that point, if you are investing as many points as a CR90 or Raider I feel relay is an appropriately costed effect.

The relay synergy for Imperials, in my opinion, is what offsets the increased cost of the Gozanti over the Transport.

1 hour ago, BrobaFett said:

Agree

For rebels you take a VCX for strategic because taking enough of them for meaningful relay eats too much into your cap. For imperials relay works, but is still an investment. That is why you see Jendon all the time (he keeps relay) and almost never see Hera (she loses strategic, and even her token relay to boot. But seriously, if she kept strategic you would literally see her in every Rebel fleet). But Imperial flotillas don't cost 18 points, they are 23. So this statement doesn't quite work. It really costs you 38 (23+15) or 48 (18+15+15) to get the relay gimmick to work. At that point, if you are investing as many points as a CR90 or Raider I feel relay is an appropriately costed effect.

The relay synergy for Imperials, in my opinion, is what offsets the increased cost of the Gozanti over the Transport.

With Jedon the primary reason I take him is for double shooting (Steele we love you), relay is nice to have if I need to chase a wounded fighter or ship late game, but I would much rather have had strategic on Jedon. I like Jedon Steele to activate at the same time as their support group which means a nice 4-5 fighter activations.