57 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

A part of me thinks that Gas Clouds will for the most part be the primary obstacle used for all lists going forward. I cant think of any list that doesn't prefer them besides maybe stress combos and debri.

44 minutes ago, Scott Pilgrim2 said:

Trick shot RZ-2s hate gas clouds. Anything that uses Trick Shot will hate them.

So yeah, Scott already mentioned it, but pretty sure A-wings absolutely hate gas clouds.

I'm still digesting which squads actually want them. I know afterburners, jedi, and ailerons like them a lot.

Rebel beef I suspect does NOT like them, as they already get white k turns, are not very mobile, and unless they're going up and down the board, do not want their shots through the middle auto-thrustered.

TIE swarms probably do like them because they're a formation squad, so this limits their need to break up.

49 minutes ago, Biophysical said:

1.) I agree that there's a correct answer.

2.) The system is complicated enough that my confidence in the right answer is pretty low.

This.

Someone is probably wrong in that matchup, but both squads may have been more right-than-wrong throughout swiss, and thus both overall correct. But if one can identify that they do NOT want clouds, then they should be cornering/spreading 3 gas clouds to attempt to limit obstructions (or then they really were wrong).

4 minutes ago, K13R4N said:

Can someone confirm, does a Gas Cloud Add a evade or allows you to change one of your dice to a evade result?

You roll 1 additional die and can change 1 blank result into an evade result.

It is almost the equivalent to "add an evade", which is why it's casually reduced to that phrase, but that's not entirely true and you shouldn't count the obstacle extra die twice.

21 minutes ago, player3010587 said:

Blackout is the Wedge Antilles of Shooting through Obstacles. When he shoots an obstacle-obstructed shot, the defender rolls 2 less green dice. 1 base agility + 1 obstructed bonus -2 Blackout ability = 0 dice and an f'd up Y-wing courtesy of Blackout!

Right, I get you now. If a ship has 1 defence dice it will roll 0 and therefore it can not change a dice to a evade result.

Sorry for taking so long for that to click haha.

Also, highly maneuverable ships probably want them (hi soontir!) because they can reliably get obstructed defense when they aren't shooting, and unobstructed shots when they are shooting.

While we're talking about how to abuse gas clouds a la Vader, Blackout, Trickshot + Collision, or Dash Rendar, why not take Midnight? That ability is so good! Here's my fanatical optic double hits, you get a bonus die, but no mods, not even from an obstacle! Oh, you're shooting back through that rock? How cute.

Do you think sizes of obstacles should be considered when talking about aces and their rock choses as bigger the better but is the effect the rock has outway the decision entierly?

eg. If a rock was the size of a pea but has the effect of adding 12 defensive dice is it worth taking?

1 hour ago, K13R4N said:

Very interesting list with Daniel Lim:

luminaraunduli
jag + Veteran Tail Gunner
wolffe + Veteran Tail Gunner
104thbattalionpilot + Veteran Tail Gunner

This guy seems to have done the one thing you didn't say 😂 3 arcs and a 4th buddy to support them.

2nd in 58.

Luminara with 3 arcs is incredibly beefy! 3 arcs with a defencive Juke, I can image the community will be looking down this road now one player did really well with it.

I was wondering if someone would pick up 3 ARCs and Luminara. That is on a similar level of interest to me as is Plo/Wolffe/Jag/Torrent. Although I'm curious as to why the Tail Gunners and how often they actually worked in his favor. There is definitely an increase in ship count these days and more shots is good? I originally equipped 2 of the ARCs with 7th Fleet Gunner, while Jag dropped down to a 104th to fit that.

1 hour ago, Boom Owl said:

• Energy Shell Charges - This creates 2 specific range bands the Vultures want to be in, three and one. Range 3 not giving range bonuses is a large difference from just saying it's 5-6 "3 die shots." Playing the range control game while not having access to white 3 banks is sad though. Also, holy crap, they can they dish out some serious amount of crits if they want.
• Infiltrator - Still unsure about Dooku Pilot, but yet I haven't tried it. Maul is definitely the front runner with Hate, Scimitar, Grievous crew, and K2B4. Grievous crew at 3 pts is a borderline auto include on any Infiltrator. Haven't seen any Dookrew yet, but something will come up...

• B22 - After trying out Wat +6 over the weekend, it's hard for me not to take WAT. He's such a monster every engagement after the ESC strike goes off. By that point there's so many Vultures at range 1 that he gets all the rerolls he wants. I didn't pay attention to how often I would've had the bullseye in my game to know how much damage that would've contributed, but I could try to acquire the log file to go over it.
• Vultures - I've tried staying in two groups of three. That seemed to be okay. In terms of the "breaking off to get block" that type of situation presents itself in the 2nd engagement anyway and by then the other drones want to close to range 1. Since you have about 5 drones on the board (likely 1 died or opponent shooting at Infiltrator), then it ends up creating a "chain link" of network calc flow. If you can prioritize both attacking and defending how you spend calcs amongst them, it can still work.
• Torrents - Either a Gold or Tucker is the answer. If Tucker can fit and not be an issue in comparing bid, he's actually solid. Taking an evade action then when friendly at range 1-2 shoots at something in his arc, do a focus action is a great token stack.

1 minute ago, K13R4N said:

Do you think sizes of obstacles should be considered when talking about aces and their rock choses as bigger the better but is the effect the rock has outway the decision entierly?

eg. If a rock was the size of a pea but has the effect of adding 12 defensive dice is it worth taking?

For aces to get their defensive bonuses, they need a balance. It is very hard to generate an obstruction on the smallest of the asteroids included in first edition's first coreset. At the same time, the biggest of asteroids are not always the best choice, given that there are some large debris clouds whose bonuses (discouraging pursuers from chasing through them given that they would then be stressed and often facing where the ace used to be as opposed to just losing an action and a higher likelihood of damage from flying through an asteroid) outweigh those of asteroids (of course, this changes given a lot of variables. If you see a lot of Dash, asteroids force him to fly differently or spend actions just to get his shots off.)

Fortunately, those gas clouds are massive enough to grant those bonuses so long as the opponent doesn't have the raw maneuver speed to just blast through them. If you're using them as a disengage defensive strat for your aces, be aware of strikers, advanced sensors, coordinate, trajectory simulator seismics, and other weird edge cases in addition to the litany of things to watch out earlier discussed in the thread. Best advice is to get some reps in with them. Experience is the best form of learning for this game.

1 minute ago, player3010587 said:

Experience is the best form of learning for this game.

I agree. Trouble is I don't get many games in, so I need to theorize and discuss with those that know in order to learn in a timely fashion.

Back on the topic of ARCs because I'm slow and chat moves fast...

B-Wing ARC
more shield more total hitpoints
same front arcs
no back arc 2 dice back arc
small base medium base
(better for not hitting stuff?) (better for blocks, larger arcs)
cannon/cannon/sensor crew/gunner/astro
(both have torp/mod)
access to selfless access to 7th fleet, r4p astros, Cody
stress -> passive mods passive mods reliant on positioning
(for named pilots) (for named pilots)
white roll, link roll/focus red roll, but on a medium base so faster
red 1hard, 1 tallon no 1 hards or any tallons
2k turn 4k turn
red 3-banks white 3 banks
no 3 hards red 3 hards
white 2 banks blue 2 banks
blue 3 straights white 3 straights
(otherwise same dials)
41 points 42 points

I feel like the ARC easily wins this comparison, and B-Wings are already good (like, winning hyperspace trials-level good). Even without Leia, I think ARCs are worth looking in to.

Here's the thing going through my head about Trick Shot vs Gas Clouds: trying to push damage through a Gas Cloud without Trick Shot is a lot harder than with Trick Shot. Just thinking of Strikers for a second...

• 3 attack focused vs 2 agility. 1.531 expected hits.
• 3 attack focused vs 2 agility obstructed. 1.217 expected hits.
  • Regular obstruction reduces damage by ~0.3 hits
• 3 attack focused vs 2 agility obstructed by Gas Cloud, 0.494 expected hits.
  • Gas Cloud obstruction reduces damage by ~1.0 hits. 0.7 more than other obstructions
• Trick Shot 3 attack focused vs 2 agility obstructed. 1.908 expected hits.
  • Trick Shot adds ~0.7 hits with regular obstructed attacks
• Trick Shot 3 attack focused vs 2 agility obstructed by Gas Cloud. 1.053 expected hits.
  • Trick Shot only adds ~0.5 hits vs Gas Cloud attacks, 0.2 less than when shooting through other obstacles.

So where does this leave trick shot ships vs non-trick shot ships? Regular Obstruction: +0.7 damage dealt, -0.3 damage received. Gas Obstruction: +0.5 damage dealt, -1.0 damage received. So a bit less of an offensive bonus, but a bigger defensive bonus, with the total magnitude the changes is higher. Seems like Trick Shot still wins out with Gas Clouds, on strictly a damage-dice sense.

There's certainly going to be some differences with the impact on how people dial things in. Skipping actions is bad (because actions are very good), but without lasting effects just ploughing through is easier than other obstacles. But that goes both ways. Opponents might not work as hard to avoid them, but there are ways many trick shot ships can use them. Lando still gets his pilot ability action if he flies over these with a blue move. Strikers can Ailerons over them (so can really get their face in there, for easier obstructed shots).

took them to a hyperspace trial last weekend with vader/vermeil/countdown/gideon. Made top 8. Pretty much everything in the list likes the gas clouds.

Thought the field would be resistance a wing heavy (played against it my first match) and they were really helpful. Vader loves having autothrusters when he wants it, and the two ailerons ships loved having the clouds (and vermeil liked basically being able to get a free reinforce and unlimited space to sloop into - people probably aren't flying onto the cloud to block my sloop). The list is maneuverable enough to get the benefits when it wants, and get unobstructed shots when it needs to push damage through.

They were really helpful in every game I played.

EDIT: I might think about bringing a large rock and two gas clouds next time... to let me block at least one lane for swarms to turn in on.

In case you were not already aware, there is in fact a star wars ship called the "dune lizard".

25 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

In case you were not already aware, there is in fact a star wars ship called the "dune lizard".

Looks like they saw the E-Wing and said, “let’s make that look less like a 90s comic book.” I dig it?

2 hours ago, Ximatique said:

It allows you to change a "blank" to an evade.

Which means if they roll all focus, they can’t change a result.

Managed to do a damage when my torrent rolled 1 hit, because my opponent rolled 3 focus.

17 minutes ago, millertime059 said:

Which means if they roll all focus, they can’t change a result.

Managed to do a damage when my torrent rolled 1 hit, because my opponent rolled 3 focus.

1/64 is a lot more common than people give it credit for. The hype for them is real because it vastly mitigates (or abuses, if your callsign is Blackout) RNG, making the game more about positioning and timing. Sadly, it does not fully eliminate RNG, but I'm just pumped that 1st edition autothrusters are there to stop those obstructed and unmodified potshots from half-pointing my focused ships! I know that the Wave 3 toys are awesome (I might spend more time staring at my new models than fielding them!) but fly an interceptor/silencer with a minimum of 3 gas clouds. I have not felt so liberated and elated since 2nd edition announced its changes to bombs, turrets, and initiative.

People rightfully complain about 1st edition autos for being too easy to proc. These offer the same glorious reward, but require some working to get it and can work both ways. But their presence in the game is all that I could hope for. Autos were my best friend in the brokenness of 1st edition. I miss them, but not 1st edition. Seeing their effect again is like meeting that friend outside of the time I don't miss, and that is joyful.

56 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

In case you were not already aware, there is in fact a star wars ship called the "dune lizard".

Sadly not canon... A Mandal Motors (yes that Mandal Motors, the paint scheme we see is Hutt, the ship is Mandalorian made) product that was sold on the open market along side the Scyk and Kimogila (as well as a design called the Kryat which was a 2 person gunship, think a larger Kimo with a turret on top, that had room for a couple of others, usually prisoners).

2 minutes ago, Hiemfire said:

Sadly not canon... A Mandal Motors (yes that Mandal Motors, the paint scheme we see is Hutt, the ship is Mandalorian made) product that was sold on the open market along side the Scyk and Kimogila (as well as a design called the Kryat which was a 2 person gunship, think a larger Kimo with a turret on top, that had room for a couple of others, usually prisoners).

Someone has been listening to a different podcast...

37 minutes ago, PaulRuddSays said:

Someone has been listening to a different podcast...

Virginia Kryats is the best Legion podcast. GEET GUDE.

22 minutes ago, DoubleDown11 said:

Virginia Kryats is the best Legion podcast. GEET GUDE.

I don’t believe you?

23 minutes ago, DoubleDown11 said:

Virginia Kryats is the best Legion podcast. GEET GUDE.

Username checks out

22 minutes ago, Do I need a Username said:

Username checks out

Woah, the username/comment synergy is getting pretty deep here.

3 hours ago, Boom Owl said:

In case you were not already aware, there is in fact a star wars ship called the "dune lizard".

19 minutes ago, Brunas said:

Looks like a landed Firespray.

44 minutes ago, Brunas said:

5 hours ago, K13R4N said:

Do you think sizes of obstacles should be considered when talking about aces and their rock choses as bigger the better but is the effect the rock has outway the decision entierly?

eg. If a rock was the size of a pea but has the effect of adding 12 defensive dice is it worth taking?

Yeah, 100%. Dust clouds being kinda medium-large is an important facet of their table implications. Small vs large asteroids is a world of difference.