Article is up and it is vehicle/support heavy!

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2017/7/21/man-your-battlestations/

Is this enough to get you to start using vehicles? Personally I think Cinea's power is worthless having to also spend two resources. I think FFG missed the boat (so far) on a Support/Vehicle heavy set.

Looks great! I'm going to be running 2xRookie Pilot/2xHired Gun for sure!

2 hours ago, Stone37 said:

Article is up and it is vehicle/support heavy!

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2017/7/21/man-your-battlestations/

Is this enough to get you to start using vehicles? Personally I think Cinea's power is worthless having to also spend two resources. I think FFG missed the boat (so far) on a Support/Vehicle heavy set.

How does anyone not see how good Cinea is?

First off, its unlimited. Second, with eThrawn and eUnkar available to her, resources are not a problem. How can you even question 2 resources to ready AT-ST, Slave 1, AT-DP, etc? Thats HUGE amounts of dmg coming at you multiple times a turn potentially.

~D

41 minutes ago, HoodieDM said:

How does anyone not see how good Cinea is?

First off, its unlimited. Second, with eThrawn and eUnkar available to her, resources are not a problem. How can you even question 2 resources to ready AT-ST, Slave 1, AT-DP, etc? Thats HUGE amounts of dmg coming at you multiple times a turn potentially.

~D

Good point on it being unlimited. I hope this set does create viable Support driven decks. Part of the Star Wars experience is the whole war in the stars thing... I'm ready to squash some Rebel scum with the might of the Imperial Navy, or make that one in a million shot in an X-wing.

46 minutes ago, HoodieDM said:

How does anyone not see how good Cinea is?

First off, its unlimited. Second, with eThrawn and eUnkar available to her, resources are not a problem. How can you even question 2 resources to ready AT-ST, Slave 1, AT-DP, etc? Thats HUGE amounts of dmg coming at you multiple times a turn potentially.

Because you can pay 2 resources to get an extra die for one turn, or you can pay 2 resources for a solid upgrade to get an extra die for this turn and every one to come. Oh, and it first requires you to have managed to drop a super expensive, hard-to-play vehicle support to get any real benefit from her at all, because otherwise she's a very underwhelming die.

Even if you've got the money to spare, the opportunity cost for 2 resources is astronomical for a very, VERY slow ability. It'll be fun watching you spend two resources and then just seeing them forever wasted when someone removes the die.

Edit: And doing it multiple times a turn is even dumber. If you're sitting on 4 resources in a support-heavy deck, you're better off playing another expensive support. Are there cases where it would be your best play? Sure, but you're into fantasy scenarios and corner cases at that point, not solid play strategy.

1 hour ago, Buhallin said:

Because you can pay 2 resources to get an extra die for one turn, or you can pay 2 resources for a solid upgrade to get an extra die for this turn and every one to come. Oh, and it first requires you to have managed to drop a super expensive, hard-to-play vehicle support to get any real benefit from her at all, because otherwise she's a very underwhelming die.

Even if you've got the money to spare, the opportunity cost for 2 resources is astronomical for a very, VERY slow ability. It'll be fun watching you spend two resources and then just seeing them forever wasted when someone removes the die.

Edit: And doing it multiple times a turn is even dumber. If you're sitting on 4 resources in a support-heavy deck, you're better off playing another expensive support. Are there cases where it would be your best play? Sure, but you're into fantasy scenarios and corner cases at that point, not solid play strategy.

All I can say is that you are obviously not seeing the mass disposable income that Thrawn, Unkar, will create each turn

15 minutes ago, ozmodon said:

All I can say is that you are obviously not seeing the mass disposable income that Thrawn, Unkar, will create each turn

Perhaps, but if you are running Thrawn and Unkar you aren't running Ree.

11 minutes ago, GooeyChewie said:

Perhaps, but if you are running Thrawn and Unkar you aren't running Ree.

True but dropping an AT-ST turn one trumps Ree.

10 minutes ago, ozmodon said:

True but dropping an AT-ST turn one trumps Ree.

...which we weren't even talking about, so... OK?

I think you're vastly overstating what Thrawn will do to boost Unkar's profitability, but even now Unkar can commonly get to 6 resources. We've yet to see the AT-ST making an appearance, and 2199 is one of the most popular pairings with Unkar so the access has been there. I know everyone wants to love the big cards - I do too - but the problem with the AT-ST isn't just the cost, it's that it's a bad card. Supports are slow, expensive, only add one die instead of 3 for an equal cost, and are easily mitigated. Even if Thrawn does make Unkar get there more easily, it's not going to make it a good investment. It's just going to mean you have more money left over after your poor choice.

I think it's premature to pass judgment on Cinea ether way without seeing what's in the rest of the set. Based on cards available now and current deck combinations, it's easy to say that she won't be competitive. But in a week when they preview some more cards and one of them is a "you just passed go, collect 200 resources" event, or some equivalent, then she'll be awesome.

I think they want us to play vehicles, hey?

4 hours ago, Buhallin said:

Because you can pay 2 resources to get an extra die for one turn, or you can pay 2 resources for a solid upgrade to get an extra die for this turn and every one to come. Oh, and it first requires you to have managed to drop a super expensive, hard-to-play vehicle support to get any real benefit from her at all, because otherwise she's a very underwhelming die.

Even if you've got the money to spare, the opportunity cost for 2 resources is astronomical for a very, VERY slow ability. It'll be fun watching you spend two resources and then just seeing them forever wasted when someone removes the die.

Edit: And doing it multiple times a turn is even dumber. If you're sitting on 4 resources in a support-heavy deck, you're better off playing another expensive support. Are there cases where it would be your best play? Sure, but you're into fantasy scenarios and corner cases at that point, not solid play strategy.

eThrawn/eCiena can easily get AT-ST out turn 1.

So Ill enjoy hitting you for 15 dmg turn 2. Yeah thanks for playing.

And Thrawn laughs at your dice removal cards as he will just make you discard those cards. OR the simple fact is I know theyre in your hand, so I can gradually work on other shennanigans until the time is right to destroy you. Not hard.

~D

Pretty sure the odds will be heavily against eThrawn/eCiena getting and AT-ST out turn 1. If your fifteen damage turn two dream scenario can ever be made the norm, then there's already hard counters to it. Heavy Mill, Unkar, resource denial, etc etc. Not to mention Thrawn can't stop every card in his opponent's hand.

Unless there's a way to play a support, roll the support, fix the suppprt and resolve the support all in the same action (i.e. Poe), they're just not gonna be good. These previews haven't changed that.

1 hour ago, HoodieDM said:

eThrawn/eCiena can easily get AT-ST out turn 1.

So Ill enjoy hitting you for 15 dmg turn 2. Yeah thanks for playing.

"Easily"? This is the type of thing that I'd normally bust out the math on. You know, basic probabilities that expand into more complex scenarios, that sort of thing. But I'm just not even going to bother this time. Instead, I'm going to go read an article on the deplorable state of STEM education.

Good luck making that work. Really.

With Ree having two resource sides and Thrawn having a 2 resource side, it seems to me that the pair would generate a good bit a resources. But the question is, what's the more useful application of resources? Ree readying vehicles, or simply playing more vehicles? In the short run, Ree can come out ahead, but in the long run the re-usable die of a played support will outweigh Ree's ability. Now add in the fact that Unkar can bring yellow cards (including Slave I), and the fact that his ability synergizes well with Thrawn's targeted discard, I would run Thrawn/Unkar over Thrawn/Ree.

Summary: Most of the villains stuff is fine. Heroes should probably just go and cry themselves to sleep. A lot of this stuff depends on how the meta ends up in EoW, and whether they manage to rein in high offense speed decks.

Ciana: She's fine. Her dice is better than Bala's - no focus, but I'm not going to say no to disrupt in Villain red or double money sides. And at 9 health she's pretty durable for her cost. I'd agree that her ability isn't great, but there's still cases when it's going to be an absolutely clutch play to use it. I think building around her is a trap, but she's fine when you consider that she costs 8/11 points with a good dice and an ability that *could* swing games.

AT-DP: Yay for not being able to blow itself up with Cunning. Other than that, unless we see some really good 2 cost supports, it doesn't really do anything drastically different from a TIE Fighter. I guess it counters Planetary Uprising, which may be enough of a reason for it to see play over the competition.

Natural Pilot: Probably too expensive to see play when vehicles decks are likely to be swarmy; one big advantage of supports is that they can't be removed by killing the character, and this paints an awful big target on someone. Most likely home I can see for it is something with Hired Guns, so you can replace it into Second Chance if needed.

Hux: Apparently Villains needed their own version of Ackbar. Can heroes get their own version of villain characters then? Oh wait, he's actually Ackbar with 11 ****ing health instead of an ability that is usually blank. My mistake. Anyway....he's fine, cheapish support character. Can be played Elite with two 8 pointers. Not 100% sold on the ability, it's kind of like Luminara - you want to build around it, but it's a 1 of special. But hey, at least he doesn't cost 13/17, right?

Fall Back: Well.....it's a powerful effect. But it's really the kind of thing that you have to build around, and potentially doesn't effect your opponent. But will absolutely wreck some decks that aren't prepared for it I guess it's at least good it's in the game?

Red Alert: Probably too expensive unless we get more high costed non-uniques. Maybe it's worth it if you've got a bunch of upgrade on a random dork and the money to pay for this, but that feels like a pipe dream.

Imperial Backing: So...maths wise. With two characters, this just gives a support Ambush, which isn't worth it. At three character it's a one cost reduction, and then at four characters it's significant at two cost. Course, that assumes you've still got said characters, and a support that costs the right amount to be reduced. I think it's a maybe, and the maths starts to look really good with Hux (but again, likely too unreliable to be built around).

Hera: Her ability is sort of a balanced mini-Poe. The rest of her dice is kind of garbage, but she's ten health and cheap. So....She's pretty much another in the line of hero weenie support characters. Yay. Can they get someone that can shoot a ****ing gun, please? At least she potentially contributes damage wise by letting you shoot people with vehicles, so maybe she'll end up decent, but still disappointing (really, really holding out for the last Red heroes character to be <16 points Elite and a decent fighter).

Ghost: It's dice is pretty terrible for the cost. No blanks and the special means it's consistently 'okay', but I don't think that justifies not having a better dice.

Y-Wing: I'm not sold. The special is nice, but gives your opponent a lot of options to soak the damage. Otherwise it's very underwhelming for it's cost. Would an extra 1 <whatever face isn't a blank> really have killed this? Oh wait, Hero card. Never mind.

Rookie Pilot: Also underwhelming. What a surprise. The ability is 'okay', but not really enough to justify the otherwise ****ty dice. Stormtroopers get away with two blanks because they otherwise roll black damage or money and they've got support; what's this guys excuse? Again, would it really have been too much to give him a 1 damage side or something? Maybe an extra health?

Reckless Re-entry: So sort of a version of Strategic Planning, oh except that you sometimes just randomly blow up your expensive support. That sounds *great*. So you only play it with stuff that doesn't have blanks, okay. It's still at best slightly better than Strategic Planning, without the possibility of countering opponent's supports. Man, I'm excited.

Rally Aid: Seriously? Seriously? ****ing random? So it's something that maybe does something useful, except it also randomly does nothing or prompts you to play a card you don't actually want to play right now. Maybe at some point this sees play in some kind of general 'play stuff that is good' deck where you don't really care what it hits, but ugh. Oh wait, I can build around ensuring my hand only has big vehicles in it! So that I can get a minor discount on it! Wooooo. Seriously, this card could have straight up said 'reduce a vehicle by two', and it wouldn't have been broken.

Shield Generator: Hey! Here's a card that actually maybe does stuff! You know, if support destruction actually becomes a thing that happens more than once in a blue moon. But I guess at least it's maybe decent? Except that these kind of protection effects are almost always bad. Yeah, it's probably bad. Sigh.

7 hours ago, Abyss said:

Ghost: It's dice is pretty terrible for the cost. No blanks and the special means it's consistently 'okay', but I don't think that justifies not having a better dice.

Ghost + C3-PO = Crazy Dice Shenanigans. Until the AT-DP fries his logic circuits.

Rally Aid can create a decent surprise if you get down to one card, "It's a Trap" say that can now be played for free and your opponent has probably discounted you ability to play it. I think too it highlights that we will have more card choices than ever before, and we shouldn't expect every card to go into every deck that can take it. It also seems to imply that as we are going to have more supports that timing and hand management will become important.

12 hours ago, Buhallin said:

"Easily"? This is the type of thing that I'd normally bust out the math on. You know, basic probabilities that expand into more complex scenarios, that sort of thing. But I'm just not even going to bother this time. Instead, I'm going to go read an article on the deplorable state of STEM education.

Good luck making that work. Really.

You think youll have to pay the full 6 resource costs with all the goodies going to be out there? Not likely.

And yes, with 2 resources to start, 4 more resources is not hard to get considering eThrawn can get it himself.

You go read. In the end, closed mindedness like yours, lacks the ability to see the potential cards/decks can have. This is why youll always be a person who net decks.

Again, thanks for playing!

~D

Thrawn has 2 sides and a 2 side. So he has a fairly good chance of adding 2 resources, which may be adjusted for re-rolls and dice removal effects and disrupt too.

You could throw in an enrage (What do you mean Thrawn isn't a blue character look at him! ) through logistics and other cards will help. Prepare for War and other cards all add to the tally if drawn.

The main problem I see in all this is what interaction goes on between the two players and how this may affect the results. Disrupts with upgrades seems to have a different dynamic to disrupts with supports. So while it seems plausible to get to 6 keeping them to spend also seems unlikely.

1 hour ago, HoodieDM said:

You think youll have to pay the full 6 resource costs with all the goodies going to be out there? Not likely.

You're now increasing the number of cards required in your combo. This does not improve your odds - quite the opposite, actually.

1 hour ago, HoodieDM said:

And yes, with 2 resources to start, 4 more resources is not hard to get considering eThrawn can get it himself.

They must absolutely LOVE you in Vegas.

1 hour ago, HoodieDM said:

In the end, closed mindedness like yours, lacks the ability to see the potential cards/decks can have.

Success doesn't rely on "potential". It relies on consistency and repeatability. Potentially, Black One can win you the game the turn it hits the table. Potentially, BB-8 should be the best support in the game because you'll never have to discard a card to reroll ever. In reality, they're both pretty bad cards. Why? Math.

1 hour ago, HoodieDM said:

This is why youll always be a person who net decks.

Ooooh, burn!! But wrong.

The real issue is the extra steps it takes to utilize Support dice. Upgrades are faster and often cheaper. I'd love to see some mechanics that expand the roll of support cards. Maybe a vehicle support that reduces damage to its controller's characters. Maybe an upgrade that allowed a character to roll a vehicle die when activated. How about a vehicle that healed the controller's characters?

There is lots of potential and I look forward to seeing what this set brings.

19 hours ago, Amanal said:

So while it seems plausible to get to 6 keeping them to spend also seems unlikely.

To throw another relatively unlikely but certainly doable option in there:

hux special: play a red event from hand decreasing its cost by 1 for each character you have.

Imperial backing, 2 cost red event: play a support reducing its cost by 1 for each character you have.

3 character hux deck = possible 3 point reduction.

This requires that you roll hux special and have both imperial backing and a relevant support, but still. Fun.

I'm curious to see what other support based goodies this set has - i reckon a 'squad tactics' style "activate any number of supports" would be helpful.

On 23/07/2017 at 1:51 AM, Stone37 said:

The real issue is the extra steps it takes to utilize Support dice. Upgrades are faster and often cheaper. I'd love to see some mechanics that expand the roll of support cards. Maybe a vehicle support that reduces damage to its controller's characters. Maybe an upgrade that allowed a character to roll a vehicle die when activated. How about a vehicle that healed the controller's characters?

There is lots of potential and I look forward to seeing what this set brings.

I think it comes down to the idea that in a "normal" deck you get a certain amount of damage. If for playing support you get a slower deck but a suitable increase in damage perhaps you get a balance to the choice, you can play an upgrade deck or a support deck or a blend of both and expect that you can win with any strategy of deck build you take.

I am excited to see just how much this set brings "tactical choice" to us, many decks just rush in and roll all those Character and Upgrade dice, so you also see the counter plays pretty easily too. With 2 characters and 3 supports you can hold back on one dice which means your opponent has to make a decision as to change the game state he can see or take into consideration what potential that dice brings.