Just now, HolySorcerer said:

because it isn't a good fit on the Gunboat anymore

Again this is why im rambling about this. Maybe 3 HLC gunboats is actually the correct choice now since 2 dice can still do damage to even a 3 agility ace like soontir.

What's weird is I've begun viewing the HLC more as a conditional extra mod instead of an extra attack die. I don't usually get double mods on my ships (most test games have been against TIE Swarm). For ships that usually are single modified, it is pretty similar to 3 dice double modded. Unmodded, it's close to 3 dice with one mod.

It ends up being some nice extra firepower when blocked, moving over obstacles, or stressed.

2.0 is weird... We've become hardwired to see the nuclear battle 1.0 became and are now forced to go back to fighting with sticks and stones...

2 hours ago, Brunas said:

Is there a rebel ship people are excited for (other than Luke), period? HWKs?

I'm excited for A-wings that are cheap AND can have missiles.

I'm incredibly excited for Jake after reading the ability queue example.

Sabine piloting the attack shuttle is a blast now, getting a free evade when you've done a green is even better.

the generic B's are kind of meh. but the named Bs seem strong and stupid cheap.

I'm personally not a HWK guy, but there are several people in my area that are psyched.

AP-5 is going to be a killer support ship but seems stronger with generics who have just k turned than an ace which is a cool niche.

SUPPRESSING FIRE!

I'll put up with the X-wing chassis for Wedge. (also elusive chopper on Porkins will be part of my casual lists for a while)

I'm more interested in the scum Y (drea) but figuring how to effectively work the turret and veteran turret gunner together is a challenge I'm looking forward to.

Basically I don't see competitive lists yet, it's going to take fly and working out the teams that best complement each other. But Rebels and scum are where I do a lot of my casual list building, the interactions are just more interesting and less straight forward.

Canons get range bonus and malus now, right? Then HLC is "only" a 4dice attack?

The following takes a look at the necessary return of investment for cannons. It's a quick excel estimation, only range2 shots, so no range boni/mali.

Generally, 4 greens are rather rare, so that's for now a fringe case and not so important. There are 12 ships with 3 agility, 20 with 2 agility, 15 with 1 agility, and 2 with 0 agility. That averages to 1.9, but that value is pretty pointless as the frequency of the ships would be interesting. If TIE swarms will be as frequent as we expect then I would guess that expecting a roughly 50:50 split of 3agi and 2agi ships to estimate the worth of a cannon makes sense. (e: by that I mean: half of the shots taken at the beginning of 2.0 are against 3agility ships. If it's lower then control cannons become better)

Anyway, here's something for Primary, Ion and HLC. I looked at the attacker with a focus (1. fig) or a focus+tl (2. fig). As always you can click to enlarge.
Ion always deals just 1 damage and gets [purple] ion tokens on the target. I did not factor in evades, tbh because I didn't want to redo all my sheets now and they are still at 1.0 evade version ... (also, the evade action is relatively rare at around 1/3 of all ships being able to evade. Though that's again meaningless as it matters - again - how many shots you'll take against evading ships, and not how many ships of the game have the action.)

The graphs show expected damage (or ion tokens in the case of purple) vs defense dice+mods.

Ion cannon almost always deals one damage. But against 2 and 3 agi ships, you really want the double mod to ionize them, too. And then the question boils down to this: does the ion effect lead to X additional damage in the next turn?

This X is not that high! If you have double mods, as assumed necessary (or at least very desirable) for the shot, you need (for Defender's 0-4 dice without mods, then 0-4 dice with a focus):

additional damage. Keep in mind here that you almost certainly don't deal a token to a agi3 ship with focus, and it is basically fifty-fifty whether you deal a token to 2agi+focus or 3agi without!

As example against a 2agility defender without focus: a ship with Ion cannon instead of HLC needs +2 damage in the next turn (however these occur), a ship with primary instead needs just one additional damage.
Against a 2agility defender with focus: a ship with Ion cannon instead of HLC needs 1.5 additional damage, a ship with primary instead needs 0.56 additional damage.

For tractor beam, these numbers of X additional damage are increased by 1, but the same principle applies. This time for subsequent shots in the same turn of course, as the tractor token is removed at the end of the turn. Maybe I should also emphasize that it is here of course easier to deal tractor tokens as the first damage is not dealt as damage! You have a clearly expected 1+ token for all cases (e.g. only 7% chance of NOT dealing one to 2agi+focus). I won't even try to factor in the potential damage of rocks or the lost action.

TL;DR: against 2 agility ships or lower, assuming that you manage to get double mods: Ion and Tractor beam are IMO worth it. You need to capitalize on the effect by dealing 1 extra damage to break even, and more means you are better off than taking a primary shot. HLC shots instead require pretty much one additional damage. But there, too, it looks like the control cannons are more worth it. Against 3 agility ships, you might be wasting your shot. Maybe outmaneuver, some token-stripping effect or simply other shots before might be necessary. But that adds more opportunity cost on top and gets too complicated. On the other hand, once you have the Soontir ionized, he might be complete and utter toast. Overall I'd say the worth of the control cannons is pretty meta dependent.

My opinion: this looks surprising to me and maybe I made a mistake in my thinking. 2.0 put - allegedly - more emphasis on maneuvers and thus it should be more detrimental to interfere with these maneuvers. So the effect might be even stronger.

1 hour ago, jagsba said:

I'm incredibly excited for Jake after reading the ability queue example.

Can you elaborate? I haven't had the time to go through the rules reference or rulebook in depth yet.

23 minutes ago, RStan said:

Can you elaborate? I haven't had the time to go through the rules reference or rulebook in depth yet.

Isnt it just that you can roll into a focus into a boost?

And then give another focus action to a nearby A Wing to trigger a boost.

Jake Farrell activates and performs a barrel roll action. At this point, both his ship and pilot ability trigger. He chooses the order to add them to the ability queue, adding his pilot ability first, then his ship ability.While resolving his pilot ability, he can choose a friendly ship at range 0–1. He chooses himself, and then performs a focus action. This triggers his ship ability again. Now he adds the second instance of his ship ability in front of the first instance of his ship ability.While he resolves his ship ability, he performs a rd boost action. This triggers his pilot ability and his ship ability again. He chooses to add his pilot ability first, then his ship ability.While resolving his pilot ability again, he chooses a friendly Phoenix Squadron Pilot (A-wing) at range 1. The other A-wing performs a focus action and its ship ability triggers. This is added to the front of the ability queue.Phoenix Squadron Pilot resolves its ship ability and performs a red boost action. The only abilities remaining in the ability queue are two instances of Jake Farrell’s ship ability. Since he is stressed, he cannot perform an action so neither ability has an effect and the ability queue empties.

9 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

Isnt it just that you can roll into a focus into a boost?

And then give another focus action to a nearby X-Wing to trigger a boost.

Yeah, though the example uses another A-Wing. There could be shenanigans at play with focus->red boosting another I4 or higher, then have them activate, flip foils and do a blue to clear the stress.

30 minutes ago, jokerkd said:

Jake Farrell activates and performs a barrel roll action. At this point, both his ship and pilot ability trigger. He chooses the order to add them to the ability queue, adding his pilot ability first, then his ship ability.While resolving his pilot ability, he can choose a friendly ship at range 0–1. He chooses himself, and then performs a focus action. This triggers his ship ability again. Now he adds the second instance of his ship ability in front of the first instance of his ship ability.While he resolves his ship ability, he performs a rd boost action. This triggers his pilot ability and his ship ability again. He chooses to add his pilot ability first, then his ship ability.While resolving his pilot ability again, he chooses a friendly Phoenix Squadron Pilot (A-wing) at range 1. The other A-wing performs a focus action and its ship ability triggers. This is added to the front of the ability queue.Phoenix Squadron Pilot resolves its ship ability and performs a red boost action. The only abilities remaining in the ability queue are two instances of Jake Farrell’s ship ability. Since he is stressed, he cannot perform an action so neither ability has an effect and the ability queue empties.

I can't believe this giant mess was actually their example, haha.

But yeah, Jake can pass out two focuses (and those other ships can do stuff off that, like focus linked boost an xwing then do a blue move) a turn which is cool.

6 hours ago, Brunas said:

well I went to bed early yesterday instead of recording, but today putting together a quick summary of ship comparisons cross factions which basically summarizes why I'm so out on rebels.

Is there a rebel ship people are excited for (other than Luke), period? HWKs?

Rebels just aren’t glamourous this time around. xwings and hwks probably are the most “oooh aaah” of the faction, and that’s not much there.

For effectiveness though, I feel like Zs are being slept on hard. They don’t have an Iden equivalent, or many named pilots in general, but those boys being a half point cheaper and adding red barrel roll, and talas getting a talent... They can mess some ish up.

41 minutes ago, Kdubb said:

For effectiveness though, I feel like Zs are being slept on hard. They don’t have an Iden equivalent, or many named pilots in general, but those boys being a half point cheaper and adding red barrel roll, and talas getting a talent... They can mess some ish up.

Aren't scum z's just better since they have Drea and can spend to get higher init?

30 minutes ago, catachanninja said:

Aren't scum z's just better since they have Drea and can spend to get higher init?

That or I can run a bug zapper swarm with a mix of homing missiles and static discharge vanes or I can run a mix of quadjumpers and zeds.

The rebel zed is a point cheaper though, which makes things like 8 zs, 5 with homing missiles impossible in scum. So scum zeds have better support, but rebel zs are slightly more efficient.

2 hours ago, catachanninja said:

Aren't scum z's just better since they have Drea and can spend to get higher init?

No, because they’re scum. ?

Poll time:

1: Reading cards is bad always

2: Reading cards is bad when it is common enough that anyone who cares enough to listen to a podcast should know it.

3: Reading cards is bad if you get it wrong or do no follow up with the information.

3 minutes ago, AEIllingworth said:

Poll time:

1: Reading cards is bad always

2: Reading cards is bad when it is common enough that anyone who cares enough to listen to a podcast should know it.

3: Reading cards is bad if you get it wrong or do no follow up with the information.

Answer: Two.

Though to clarify... Reading a whole list of newly released cards is bad too... Is that one then?

4 minutes ago, AEIllingworth said:

Poll time:

1: Reading cards is bad always

2: Reading cards is bad when it is common enough that anyone who cares enough to listen to a podcast should know it.

3: Reading cards is bad if you get it wrong or do no follow up with the information.

33333333333333333

Just now, AEIllingworth said:

Poll time:

1: Reading cards is bad always

2: Reading cards is bad when it is common enough that anyone who cares enough to listen to a podcast should know it.

3: Reading cards is bad if you get it wrong or do no follow up with the information.

I think theres such a ridiculous amount of new stuff that its gonna be a little bit before most people have everything memorized again.

Being wrong about things is 2.0’s greatest feature.

Trust the process.

22 minutes ago, LagJanson said:

Answer: Two.

Though to clarify... Reading a whole list of newly released cards is bad too... Is that one then?

I figure a long list is #3, doing no follow up with that information. It also increases the odds of getting something wrong.

Ive got a local that really wants to get in to content creating, but we aren’t cool/successful/disrespectful enough to follow the Krayt model. He’s got a Netrunner show that he wants to emulate, picking an upgrade and going deep into rules that apply and what other cards have interactions with it. It sounds interesting, but if it is too shallow it would probably be terrible.

Also: that would work better in the old edition, where card combos were a primary influence on how the game turned out? Hopefully card combo-ing doesn’t get too big too fast.

Has anyone put together a list of upgrades in Wave 1, in case we have to build lists that way?

@Brunas if they had listed them in the other order it would have been incredibly clever. A clear, rather straight forward example for most people then Jakes 2 card Monty game of focus and repositioning as a comprehensive example for those inclined to wear pocket protectors and their ilk.

2 hours ago, AEIllingworth said:

Poll time:

1: Reading cards is bad always

2: Reading cards is bad when it is common enough that anyone who cares enough to listen to a podcast should know it.

3: Reading cards is bad if you get it wrong or do no follow up with the information.

I think it's almost 1. Like, the only time you should verbatim read a card is if you're talking about the rules and how they interact with each intricate little word on the card. If I don't know what a card says, it's because it's a card that hasn't been released yet, which means that everything at this stage is just theorycrafting anyway so I don't really care about every little intricacy. I just care about what list idea you're talking about that it might synergize with.

It's also awkward-sounding. Like, I much prefer if you just say the card's name, how you think it might be used, and then gradually reveal the rest of the card as each bit of the text becomes relevant to the discussion.

The more I play with squad builders, the more I think Imperials look like best faction. There are just so many legit squads you can make from swarms, to aces, to ordinance focused. I feel like I have so many options in what I want to slide into a squad based on synergies/points/etc. Add in the best crew and Imperial dominance seems very real.

However, I do want to fly this Rebel list just for the theme. If I could fit concussion missiles in (or the MF title) instead, I would:

10 hours ago, AEIllingworth said:

Poll time:

1: Reading cards is bad always

2: Reading cards is bad when it is common enough that anyone who cares enough to listen to a podcast should know it.

3: Reading cards is bad if you get it wrong or do no follow up with the information.

2 and 3. If a card is worth reading, it's worth understanding.