21 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

Sooo does anyone else think Dalan would probably have been fine if he retained manoeuvre colour? His ability and Ryad's are so similar, but he can only use his every other round and gets it completely shut down by stress, whereas she can use hers EVRRY round and it HELPS with stress.

Just seems a little inconsistent to me.

I'm not sure, while I find his ability somewhat lacking, he'd be a PS6 (or 8 with VI) that can turn anywhere with any bank or turn maneuver every turn and would likely be much tougher to catch than Ryad that can only turn around on straight maneuvers. I'll take the middle ground and say that he needs a little extra help but not quite that much, such as having his talon roll ability turn greens into whites and whites into reds.

Players who think the presence of one subpar copycat ship will cause all the bad mean meta players to handicap their own lists have a strange perspective on list building.

When Thweek copies Biggs, he's not going to have Kanan or Lowhrick and Selflessness there to protect him. If he copies Kanan he's not going to have Recon Specialist or Rey to fuel the ability. When Dengar and Thweek trigger their abilities at each other, which chassis do you think is going to come out on top? When he copies Nym, how many bombs is he going to have to play with if he didn't already have Nym in the list? When he copies Miranda, will she care that he can regenerate that one shield while she SLAMs circles around him and prevents him from taking the required shot to regen?

Thweek doesn't really punish any of the scary meta boogeymen that get people on these forums steaming and posting text walls about. He's a gimmick that will sometimes have a relevant ability and sometimes just be a vanilla starviper with no EPT that either moves last or shoots first.

10 hours ago, kris40k said:

Good point, I had forgotten Jan was a single attack in the round.

Technically you could use it for every shot, if a way existed to remove the stress (which is why I doubt you'll ever see Rebels get a Yorr-like ability).

Fun in HotAC though. Give a ship Jan Ors and Nien Numb's abilities. Get into range 1 and buff your entire squads attacks!

5 hours ago, Vontoothskie said:

Imagine if someone played biggs and you had thweek with cloaking device and stealth device, and jabba on bossk with bodygaurd in your list. 7 defence dice on your cloaked thweek, 8 at range 3. just fortress in the corner and win. so broken

I've played against fortress Bossk before. You pre-measure range 3 to Bossk and then stay at that range and shoot him. You only need 6 damage before they start moving.

2 minutes ago, Tvboy said:

Players who think the presence of one subpar copycat ship will cause all the bad mean meta players to handicap their own lists have a strange perspective on list building.

When Thweek copies Biggs, he's not going to have Kanan or Lowhrick and Selflessness there to protect him. If he copies Kanan he's not going to have Recon Specialist or Rey to fuel the ability. When Dengar and Thweek trigger their abilities at each other, which chassis do you think is going to come out on top? When he copies Nym, how many bombs is he going to have to play with if he didn't already have Nym in the list? When he copies Miranda, will she care that he can regenerate that one shield while she SLAMs circles around him and prevents him from taking the required shot to regen?

Thweek doesn't really punish any of the scary meta boogeymen that get people on these forums steaming and posting text walls about. He's a gimmick that will sometimes have a relevant ability and sometimes just be a vanilla starviper with no EPT that either moves last or shoots first.

Well, the Biggs thing could be pretty handy at range 3 with autothrusters and could potentially avoid a similar amount of damage thanks to that. Adding a cloaking device for 5-7 green dice might also be fun. As for other abilities, you're comparing a 30-point ship (mk2, virago, AT and FCS) to 40, 50 and 60-point ships, so it's only natural that those would come out on top in a 1-on-1. Getting an extra shot in when you copy Dengar is always handy because it's at least one more shot than you would have had before. Miranda might run circles around Thweek but if it ends up with Miranda vs. Thweek you were already beaten the moment it got to that point, however, if you kill Miranda and end up against another 30-point ship then the ability to recover/attack with an extra die might well win you the game.

I agree that he's gimmicky and not the punishing boogeyman some people make him out to be, and there will be pilot abilities that don't help at all (though there will also be some awesome abilities, such as Poe, Rey, Omega Leader, the Inquisitor, Palob, etc.), but I also don't think that your apples-to-oranges examples are entirely fair.

This set as a whole is feeling to me like they've hit pretty much bang centre of the target for balance. Vaksai is amazing, but doesn't make the base ship any cheaper, meaning that you can't spam them much more effectively than you could be fore, and it gives the cheap pilots a bump whilst keeping them cheap, and gives options for Talonbane either to be cheap and disposable or expensive and tough(er). Hel's ability is nice-to-have but he's really just a cheap mid-PS ace. Dalan is interesting but nowhere near OP and Thweek provides very interesting options without being OP. The new generic is the right price instead of a point too much. Ion Dischargers are strong but with a major downside.

I've got to say I'm really pleased with this one, even if I WOULD have preferred Dalan's ability to be a bit better.

Why are we only discussing thweek? he is a super fun pilot who provokes creativity. I love him but but I doubt he will ever be a consistent tourney play ship.

what other viper builds does this preview encourage?

I agree though that Thweek probably won't influence what ships are chosen. But there are enough pilots that make investing in his survivability interesting. Not just Biggs, Imperials also have lots of abilities that work well in isolation: Wampa, Omega Leader, Ryad, Vader, etc.

Most competitive players probably won't like the unpredictable Mimicked condition. If he's chosen at all, maybe it'll be with an initiative bid in mind.

17 minutes ago, Scoundrel said:

what other viper builds does this preview encourage?

I'm looking forward to something like this:

21 minutes ago, Scoundrel said:

Why are we only discussing thweek? he is a super fun pilot who provokes creativity. I love him but but I doubt he will ever be a consistent tourney play ship.

what other viper builds does this preview encourage?

We're only talking about Thweek because he's by far the most interesting thing in the preview.

Dalan's ability is solid but unexceptional, and Ion Discharger is generically good but by no means outstanding. Thweek OTOH is really interesting and has the potential for a wide and lasting impact on the meta.

24 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

I've got to say I'm really pleased with this one, even if I WOULD have preferred Dalan's ability to be a bit better.

If Dalan had just a point more Pilot Skill he'd actually be decent. PS7 is pretty reasonable, and you can VI it up to PS9 if you want. Or keep it at 7 and give Stay on Target. The ideal however would be him being natively PS9, something which I think the Starviper sorely needs, and that would make him very very interesting indeed.

At PS7 or 8 with his current ability he would have been good, retaining the original colour of the move (or making greens white and whites red) at his current or a lower PS would have been good.

As it is it feels like falls squarely between two stools and is likely not to see much use as a result. His ability doesn't make him flexible enough to be used at the level Ryad is when he's only able to use it every other round at most and his PS isn't high enough to reach ace levels (VI gives him minimal ace levels, but then he's not getting much in the way of mods, especially if you use AS to give him manoeuvring flex) and really utilise his movement flexibility. Plus his ability makes him a lot less attractive to use with Mindlink.

I do wonder about Electronic Baffle and PRS on him, with lower PS getting Autothrusters seems less likely.

Similarly, Thweek seems to me likely to have a lot of potential use for PRS, potentially more so than ATs. THere are enough common abilities that really benefit from regen to make it plausibly his best mod - Biggs, Quickdraw, and Miranda being three key ones, but also Inaldra.

8 minutes ago, Mward1984 said:

If Dalan had just a point more Pilot Skill he'd actually be decent. PS7 is pretty reasonable, and you can VI it up to PS9 if you want. Or keep it at 7 and give Stay on Target. The ideal however would be him being natively PS9, something which I think the Starviper sorely needs, and that would make him very very interesting indeed.

I think mid-PS pilots with lots of repositioning abilities are good for the game. You have to predict where the opponent's ace ends up or deny areas, rather than having the luxury of knowing exactly where you want to be. PS 9 repositioning just makes opponents reach for their turrets.

51 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

This set as a whole is feeling to me like they've hit pretty much bang centre of the target for balance. Vaksai is amazing, but doesn't make the base ship any cheaper, meaning that you can't spam them much more effectively than you could be fore, and it gives the cheap pilots a bump whilst keeping them cheap, and gives options for Talonbane either to be cheap and disposable or expensive and tough(er). Hel's ability is nice-to-have but he's really just a cheap mid-PS ace. Dalan is interesting but nowhere near OP and Thweek provides very interesting options without being OP. The new generic is the right price instead of a point too much. Ion Dischargers are strong but with a major downside.

I've got to say I'm really pleased with this one, even if I WOULD have preferred Dalan's ability to be a bit better.

There i have to disagree with vaskai, i've built an alpha strike list to put torp boats to shame using 3 black sun assasins and ndru with cruise missles, deadeye and (mostly) scavenger cranes.

The damage output sholud they all get a 1st shot is obscene, and all bar 1 get reload oppertunities

2 minutes ago, Ralgon said:

The damage output sholud they all get a 1st shot is obscene, and all bar 1 get reload oppertunities

`If.

I assume you mean Black Sun Aces.

Any one of those ships is really quite easy to PS kill, and you're either using Deadeye and only getting single mods (plus Chips), or you're needing to get a TL to fire, neither of which is trivial.

I think 4 K-FIghters or 3 K-Fighters plus a pocket ace or support ship will definitely be a big archetype but it's a LOT easier to handle than Jumps, simply because it's so much less tough, has so much less arc, and doesn't have a white turnaround or a turret or large base blocking.

But if four deadeye $things was likely to be a thing, it would already be a thing by now, you can do that with Gamma Vets, and they're hardly blowing up the meta.

1 hour ago, Tvboy said:

Players who think the presence of one subpar copycat ship will cause all the bad mean meta players to handicap their own lists have a strange perspective on list building.

When Thweek copies Biggs, he's not going to have Kanan or Lowhrick and Selflessness there to protect him. If he copies Kanan he's not going to have Recon Specialist or Rey to fuel the ability. When Dengar and Thweek trigger their abilities at each other, which chassis do you think is going to come out on top? When he copies Nym, how many bombs is he going to have to play with if he didn't already have Nym in the list? When he copies Miranda, will she care that he can regenerate that one shield while she SLAMs circles around him and prevents him from taking the required shot to regen?

Thweek doesn't really punish any of the scary meta boogeymen that get people on these forums steaming and posting text walls about. He's a gimmick that will sometimes have a relevant ability and sometimes just be a vanilla starviper with no EPT that either moves last or shoots first.

Well, if he copies Biggs, he doesn't need Kanan or Lowhrick. You will have a Biggs with a better dial, 3 agility, and autothruster, into a SCUM list. Can't you see nothing here?
He don't need to copy Kanan. Why you have to focus him?
Neither Dengar (as a lot of people here says, but I find it useless. I will copy his PS9 almost).
If you copy Nym, is only because you have Nym yourself in list.
Miranda is interesting anyway.


I don't know why people still considering Thweek vs 1 ship. Isn't that 100v100 points game?

Even with 3 agility and autothrusters he's a LOT, LOT easier to kill than Biggs with full unkillable backup (i.e. Lowhhrick, Rex, Jess, Selflessness, Draw Their Fire, IA, R4-D6) and heck, he;s not that much tougher even than Biggs just with IA and R4-D6. The droid's ability and IA probably make up for 3 dice and thrusters.

I genuinely think Thweek's best build will probably just be new title and Pulsed Ray Shields. THere are enough cases where the regen will be useful to make it a serious consideration, and keeping him t R3 whilst the rest of your list is functioning at its best and within R1 of him should biggs show up is goign to take a LOT of practice.

22 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

Even with 3 agility and autothrusters he's a LOT, LOT easier to kill than Biggs with full unkillable backup (i.e. Lowhhrick, Rex, Jess, Selflessness, Draw Their Fire, IA, R4-D6) and heck, he;s not that much tougher even than Biggs just with IA and R4-D6. The droid's ability and IA probably make up for 3 dice and thrusters.

Yes, but focus into the part "..into a Scum list".

He will be tougher as needed.

Guys? I'm a little concerned... Did anyone find an error in the article yet? I mean... It has to be there right? Right??!?!??...

3 minutes ago, gamblertuba said:

Guys? I'm a little concerned... Did anyone find an error in the article yet? I mean... It has to be there right? Right??!?!??...

Let me come to your aid there, Mr Tuba.

"With its new ship cards, upgrades, and miniatures, the Guns for Hire Expansion Pack for X-Wing™ will soon offer a host of new tech and advantages to the pilots of the Scum faction's StarVipers and Kihraxz fighters."

Neither ship in the pack can take/use Tech upgrades.

23 minutes ago, Cerve said:

Yes, but focus into the part "..into a Scum list".

He will be tougher as needed.

How?

What Scum ships are there that make him tougher, other than Nym, and not a very strong Nym build at that?

34 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

How?

What Scum ships are there that make him tougher, other than Nym, and not a very strong Nym build at that?

Any ps3 with ept for bodyguard, Serissu to name 2

1 minute ago, ViscerothSWG said:

Any ps3 with ept for bodyguard, Serissu to name 2

Both of which are not exactly brilliant with any other version of Thweek.

And by not exactly brilliant I mean usually terrible.

You can't build lists on the assumption that you'll be able to Thweek Biggs. You have to build them to account for any possible opponent, so bringing stuff that's only good with Biggs just doesn't work.

45 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

How?

What Scum ships are there that make him tougher, other than Nym, and not a very strong Nym build at that?

No no, the thing is not to make him toughter. The matter is you don't need a toughter Biggs, that is enough for a scum

21 hours ago, Jo Jo said:

4-LOM crew and Ion Dischargers. Just stupid.

Well good way to bring 4-LOM bit back to alive.