Dare to dream

Ordinance Inhibitor

Tech card, 2 Points

"When suffering any bomb effect or damage, roll 1 evade dice. On an evade result cancel all bomb results. Focus tokens may be used to modify this roll."

T-70s, Tie F/O, Tie S/F, Upsilon, Quadjumper, would be the only ships that benefit. Poe would have to spend that token too. So imperials get the most help, and T-70 can last a bit longer on the table. Would put scum on their heels a bit more and in check.

ECV (Explosive Containment Vessel) Housing

Imperial Only, 1 point, Requires 1 Bomb Slot

"At the end of the activation phase, if you are within range one of any bomb token, roll an attack dice. Remove that token on a hit or critical result and discard this card."

Can be taken with extra munitions, and still has risk.

I'm telling you guys, they are going to give Imperials their day in the sun...it's coming. This would give them an excellent edge.

Specific upgrade counters that,are otherwise worthless = matchup wing

Telling you, you want attack independent damage cancellation. Works v bombs; doesnt **** you v everything else

Or hey, want a real bomb counter get ye a punisher pilot that can move bombs (theirs and enemies')

26 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

Specific upgrade counters that,are otherwise worthless = matchup wing

Telling you, you want attack independent damage cancellation. Works v bombs; doesnt **** you v everything else

Or hey, want a real bomb counter get ye a punisher pilot that can move bombs (theirs and enemies')

I don't normally agree 100% with fickle, but he is 100% correct. Specific upgrade counters are utter trash and horrid game design.

1 hour ago, Icelom said:

I don't normally agree 100% with fickle, but he is 100% correct. Specific upgrade counters are utter trash and horrid game design.

How about making it more general? "When you suffer damage or critical damage other than from an attack, roll 1 evade die. On an evade result, ignore one damage and suffer the rest. Focus tokens can be used to modify this roll." Still not that great, you're dodging one damage max so it's not brilliant against mines, but it's decent protection against on-reveal bombs and other sources of auto-damage.

Actually if you do that, you basically need to make sure interceptors can take it, otherwise what's the point.

New rule:

if you have an evade action on your action bar you can forgo your action that turn to negate any mine damage.

if you have an evade token you can spend it to negate any bomb damage.

Imperials benefit the most which feels right.

2 points, mod, limited

once per round, when you would suffer damage as a result of overlapping an obstacle or a bomb token detonating, you may reduce the damage suffered by one.

If your hull value is 3 or less, you may equip another modification.

Quote

Specific upgrade counters that,are otherwise worthless = matchup wing

Telling you, you want attack independent damage cancellation. Works v bombs; doesnt **** you v everything else

Agreed. Making it work against anything that's not an attack makes it flexible enough to deal with a whole range of threats - from bombs, to obstacles, to things like Darth Vader, Ruthlessness, Black Market Slicer Tools and Assault Missiles. That's definitely interesting enough to consider because it'll pop up in most games, as opposed to auto-winning versus bombers and being useless versus everyone else.

By default, my brain says "modification"; because it means that a TIE interceptor can carry it in its 2nd modification slot (the other being autothrusters).

Personally I kind of prefer something more like collision detectors - e.g. "When you roll attack dice for any reason other than making an attack, you may change all [hit] results to blank results or vice versa." SO it has a wide ranging effect including making fixing crits a lot more likely, making you mostly immune to asteroid damage, and interesting interactions with some specific upgrade cards including Scavenger Crane - and also makes you largely immune to rolled-damage bombs.

Doesn't do much to Sabine or Conners though which are probably the bigger issue for Squints

Great points.

Just thinking that something has to be coming down the pipeline to give Imps a counter to the impending mine/bomb wing lists.

At this point I'm fully expecting Imps to get an imp-specific bomb-buffing upgrade (hopefully not but probably a crew) in Wave 12 and for us all to have to just suck it up and deal with the fact that bombs are the future.

Anti-bomb solutions:

- Field something with a lot of health or very low cost: Lambda shuttle (add vader for good measure), Z-95, B-Wing, etc.

- Field turrets (don't have to worry as much about bombs then)

- Field something that regenerates. Bombs won't be as problematic if you can just regen from them.

The sky is not falling.

Too many interactions would slow the game down. Unless someone can field 4-5 minefield mappers somehow, I think you'll be able to fly around the stuff

26 minutes ago, dotswarlock said:

Anti-bomb solutions:

- Field something with a lot of health or very low cost: Lambda shuttle (add vader for good measure), Z-95, B-Wing, etc.

- Field turrets (don't have to worry as much about bombs then)

- Field something that regenerates. Bombs won't be as problematic if you can just regen from them.

The sky is not falling.

1: Those things are fodder for TLTs and alpha strikes. Not to mention that low cost low health gets PS killed by high PS dial bombs.

2: Imperials have literally two turret ships, one of which occupies a LOT (between 40% and 65%) of your list, and which archetype is one of their few competitive ones at the moment.

3: So, play rebels. The only meaningful regen (when it comes to bombs, Pulsed Ray Shields don't cut it at all as bombs are rarely doing exactly one damage at a time, and GONK is just bad) is Rebel.

I'm not sure your adivce is universally helpful nor universally applicable

5 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

1: Those things are fodder for TLTs and alpha strikes. Not to mention that low cost low health gets PS killed by high PS dial bombs.

2: Imperials have literally two turret ships, one of which occupies a LOT (between 40% and 65%) of your list, and which archetype is one of their few competitive ones at the moment.

3: So, play rebels. The only meaningful regen (when it comes to bombs, Pulsed Ray Shields don't cut it at all as bombs are rarely doing exactly one damage at a time, and GONK is just bad) is Rebel.

I'm not sure your adivce is universally helpful nor universally applicable

No solution is going to be 100% perfect, but these feel better than creating an upgrade that would only be useful if the enemy had bombs.

The last build that I had during a store championship (which won 6 out of 6 games) had Ventress, 3*Z95s and Sunny. If an opponent was to go full overboard with bombs, I would not mind blowing up half a Z-95 or even a full Z-95 to clear a path. That's 6 to 12 points off my list to write off the whole purpose of his

Note that there is no no need to clear out all the bombs; only those that block the manoeuvering template.

As I implied, I'd not want to see an upgrade that specifically counters bombs, that's why I suggested an alternative that didn't.

What if they added the following line to the game rules for shields.

"All ships which have shields have access to the following, ACTION: Recover 1 shield, up to your shield value. You may not perform this action if you have already recovered a shield this turn. If you perform this action, you may not recover any additional shields this turn."

It would give regen to everybody who has shields, but also wouldn't stack with other forms of shield recovery. So no regenning 2 shields with R2-D2 or Miranda.

Endless Ranks

title.

imperial only

12 points

whenever the ship with this title is destroyed, the following round you can put the ship back in the play area within range 1 of any edge. You may not equip any unique upgrades.

After giving it some thought, I don't think they'll add a specific anti-bomb upgrade.

Ask yourself: Why are bombs good?

The answer is simple- it's unavoidable damage. And when is unavoidable damage good? You guessed it- against low HP aces. Any anti-bombs upgrade may as well be replaced with a direct bombs nerf- and if aces ignore them, there's literally no point bringing them. Against higher HP ships they're simply suboptimal choices compared to regular ordnance.

So if FFG deems bombs to be unhealthy for the game (I personally don't think they are, because arc dodgers are cancer) they'll just nerf bombs (or should I say: K-Wings/Sabine, because Cad Bane is already inferior to FFG's favourite girl)

Except ideally, a game about dogfighting in space would be about dogfighting in space. IE: arc dodging.

It shouldn't be "Star Wars: Bomber-wing"

Your so-called "Cancer" of Arc-dodging should be a viable playstyle instead of basically being a suicidal way to play.

Yea, I don't think arc-dodging is necessarily bad. Token-stacking arc-dodgers (as in: double focus, evade, palpa, autothrusters, on top of 3 or 4 AGI), however, are annoying and unfun. It's good that bombs can deal with that kind of nonsense.

Token stackers still actually require skill to play. Unlike just "drop bombz evareewhere!"

If you've got Palpatine, that also means you've devoted at least 1/3 of your list to a shuttle that isn't doing much besides try and keep Palp alive.

Arc dodgers are actually fun. Sabine-bombs and Jumpmasters are decidedly unfun.

Meh. Imo arcdodging definitely takes skill, but tokenstacking a lot less so, as it's much more a matter of listbuilding than maneuvering. It's definitely unfun when you have half a percent* chance to hit a ship standing right in front of you (which goes up to a whooping FOUR percent if you have both focus and TL on the target tokenstacker).

Not saying bombs everywhere take skill, either, and Sabine bombs might well be overpowered for their price (jumpmasters definitely are). But a well-placed bomb when you actually lead an enemy ship into a trap is highly satisfying. Using bombs as a deterrent to being chased is also tactically interesting, and it works thematically.

All in all, I think some better balance needs to be found between those. Where previously we had token-stacking dominance, we now have too much bomb power. All strategies should be both viable and defeatable, from arcdodging to bombing, alpha striking, jousting, swarming. A healthy meta would be a varied meta. It's boring to watch a competition and find over half of the players play what is generally the same build.

* (3 ATK, range 2, in-arc primary weapon, vs. 3 AGI + focus + evade + palp, as calculated with http://xwingcalculator.x10host.com/diceuilm.html)

the day this game starts adding specific counters to other cards is the day it starts dying because it literally becomes matchups where skill means absolutely nothing. Right now, even if you are facing the nastiest list in the game, you CAN still win without relying purely on luck...matchwing wouldnt give you a chance.

Instead, an all around non-attack defense:

Academy Training
TIE Only, Title, 2pts
You may equip another title. You cannot equip this title if your pilot skill is 2 or lower.
When you would take damage from a non-attack source, roll a defense die. On an evade result, cancel any damage and immediately perform a barrelroll. If you dont have the Barrelroll action on your action bar, receive 1 stress. If you cannot perform the barrelroll for any reason, you cannot benefit from this card.

Works on: Bombs (both types), rocks (debris stress you so you cant benefit from it), Feedback Array, Slicer tools, or any future pilot that just "Deals damage" randomly.

6 minutes ago, Vineheart01 said:

the day this game starts adding specific counters to other cards is the day it starts dying because it literally becomes matchups where skill means absolutely nothing. Right now, even if you are facing the nastiest list in the game, you CAN still win without relying purely on luck...matchwing wouldnt give you a chance.

One could argue autothrusters is pretty much an anti-turret upgrade, and an important one, at that.