11 hours ago, MasterShake2 said:

Also, if you get blocked you can't generate stress unless you have Gina

Part of the strategy with Ten Numb and Braylen is knowing when you are going to get blocked and either execute a red maneuver to get stressed, or if they are stressed from the last turn, performing a white maneuver to retain the stress. Ten and Braylen should always be able to modify dice. their mods are unblockable.

10 hours ago, theBitterFig said:

Count me in the "I mostly don't get Gina" camp. If she could easily afford Advanced Sensors, she'd be stunning.

This where I'm at. She's not bad, but also not good. Advanced Sensors would probably make her fantastic. She has some synergy with K-2S0 pilot and Ezra pilot/crew, but why take a weak piece to make another weak piece better when you can just take 2 strong pieces in Ten Numb and Braylen Stramm that work independent of each other. Or as someone suggested, for a little cheaper, take Thane for an ability that won't screw with teammates.

13 hours ago, MasterShake2 said:

Also, infinite red maneuver I5 is remarkably annoying

Not as annoying for infinite blue maneuver for the poor bloke taking Gina's stress token! Even Ten Numb doesn't ditch stress every turn. Only from Jek Porkins can one learn that power, and that feels pretty unnatural to me.

Basically what I'm seeing is that Gina is bad in most lists - overpriced, poor in an endgame, inferior to comparable options even in her own faction, let alone outside it - and she's sometimes okay in a B-Wing list that itself is probably just okay?

Mandatory giving of stress to her pals isn't upside. Getting stress is so easy that every single ship in the game can choose to either have or keep stress on any turn they want, this isn't something that Ten or Braylen are just at a loss for finding ways to get. They can link their focus, they can do a red maneuver, or they can even Dash Rendar through a debris field (you are exploiting debris fields with your named B-Wings, right?) Heck, you can give them the S-Foils for 4% of the cost of bringing Gina and give them yet another option.

Ten and Braylen both have abilities that basically take some of the inherent weaknesses of the B-Wing chassis and say "let's mitigate these and sort of make them good sometimes." Ten Numb and Braylen have been saving their allowance for two whole weeks so they can buy Pokemon cards, and Gina is coming in and saying "oh you can afford Pokemon cards, then you need to buy some for me too." This doesn't strike me as chasing good synergy, and feels dubious in the exact same way that taking Angled Deflectors to turn on Fanatical for TIE/fo's feels dubious.

Braylen/Cassian (at previous costing) was strong synergy, and that formed the core of some tough lists. Gina makes for really questionable synergy, and her winrate and tournament performance reflect this very clearly.

I have a blast playing Gina in this list in Fly Casual; I call it "Awesome Bs" (Bwings + Blount).

Awesome Bs

(50) Gina Moonsong [A/SF-01 B-wing]
(10) Advanced Sensors
Points: 60

(52) Braylen Stramm [A/SF-01 B-wing]
(3) Autoblasters
(2) Stabilized S-Foils
Points: 57

(48) Ten Numb [A/SF-01 B-wing]
(3) Autoblasters
(2) Stabilized S-Foils
Points: 53

(30) Lieutenant Blount [Z-95-AF4 Headhunter]
Points: 30

Total points: 200

Ten, Braylen and Blount at I4 helps a lot to get the most of activation.

Looks awesome too...

4 hours ago, svelok said:

Last time I played 4-lom, this fit:

Boba w/ Debris Gambit, Marauder, Han Gunner

4-lom w/ Mist Hunter, Advanced Sensors

Palob w/ Moldy Crow

It's currently 25 points more expensive than at launch. But that 4lom is only up by one and at the peak was only ever up by two. Maybe he's too low offense to make up for the reduced offense you get in the rest of the list on non-wave-one points?

It's not like I'm playing highly competitive games with 4-LOM, but he sure can eff with a lot of stuff. That dial, with his ability, is kind of great.

If you're like "I'm skeptical on Gina", congratulations, you're exactly where I was when I first started messing with the list. I had pretty low expectations for Gina and the S-Foils + Autoblaster combo. I was just expecting to have fun with some B-Wings. Also, if you're asking "why is Gina or the Blue Escort in the list over X?", congratulations as well, you're also where both myself and most people that have tried the list have been at one point or another. The problem is...Gina and the Blue Escort are just the best choices.

I will never say Gina is universally good or generally applicable to most lists, quite the opposite, she's a situational combo piece. However, if you play the recommended list, you can actually see a complete microcosm depending on the game as to why she's there and important. She both enables better maneuvering without having to worry about penalties and makes lining up the bullseye double tap with stress a good bit easier. You'll actually feel a very marked difference in how well the list performs and how many options you have both before and after she gets destroyed.

It's easy to say "just plot maneuvers to gain or keep stress" for Ten and Braylen, but it's important to remember that B-Wings having stress at any time other than the combat phase is pure drawback. It limits maneuvers and they don't have anything allowing them to take actions while stressed. Then you have the problem that B-Wing have pretty erratic red and white maneuvers (the red maneuvers are all pretty fast or dramatically change facing while they don't natively have a straight move that's white even though they can just plot a red while stressed and their only other white maneuvers are 2 bank and turn which is not great). In other words, trying to just maintain stress both costs you economy and can also cost you position or force you into a less optimal position. If you can just run a blue and still get stressed even if you get blocked, that's a lot more freedom and, if you're like me, you'll catch yourself a lot being like "Oh wait, I have Gina, I can just plot a blue and still get stress if they block me".

You also have a subtle interaction with Ten and Braylen and the S-Foil + Autoblaster combo. The only way to get a lock and stress natively is the Roll -> lock which means you have to move position to the left or right to get it to go off which requires a lot of room and potentially getting a worse position and also means potentially not getting the bullseye as well. Gina just erases that, as long as you can take a lock, she can give you the stress for mods even if you don't o a roll making it much easier to line up the double 3 dice (or 4 dice at R1) shot with dice modification (which is pretty brutal).

pilot

Also, because Ten mods by dumping stress and the list ideally plays somewhat split anyways (you do still want room for barrel rolls ideally even if you're not using it), you'll almost never run into situations where Gina has to dump stress on a ship that doesn't want it. If nothing else, dump it on the Blue Escort "here, hold this".

It's easy to not understand how many options Gina adds without playing it and, as stated previously, she's a very combo-centric pilot that doesn't fit in most lists. It's also easy to not fully appreciate the value of just having a 6hp 2AGL and 3 red dice ship running around as a flanker/blocker vs. a support ship or less durable filler. I'd definitely recommend putting it on the table before trying to draw conclusions because it just...plays different than most other things and Gina, herself, I'm not sure works in any list that doesn't have Ten and Braylen.

5 hours ago, LUZ_TAK said:

I have a blast playing Gina in this list in Fly Casual; I call it "Awesome Bs" (Bwings + Blount).

Awesome Bs

(50) Gina Moonsong [A/SF-01 B-wing]
(10) Advanced Sensors
Points: 60

(52) Braylen Stramm [A/SF-01 B-wing]
(3) Autoblasters
(2) Stabilized S-Foils
Points: 57

(48) Ten Numb [A/SF-01 B-wing]
(3) Autoblasters
(2) Stabilized S-Foils
Points: 53

(30) Lieutenant Blount [Z-95-AF4 Headhunter]
Points: 30

Total points: 200

Ten, Braylen and Blount at I4 helps a lot to get the most of activation.

Looks awesome too...

How often are you using advanced sensors? Trying to think of ways to put Jake in the list instead of Blount.

17 minutes ago, FlyingAnchors said:

How often are you using advanced sensors? Trying to think of ways to put Jake in the list instead of Blount.

Everytime I dialed a red to dogfight with an action and give stress to another Bwing... so plenty.

If you want to upgrade to Awing, I would recomend Arvel+Intimidation over Jake (though he is good to):

1 hour ago, FlyingAnchors said:

How often are you using advanced sensors? Trying to think of ways to put Jake in the list instead of Blount.

I'd imagine frequently. AdvS Gina to chain focus and red moves seems like the sweetest way to fly her. Best? Maybe not. But sweetest.

9 hours ago, 5050Saint said:

Or as someone suggested, for a little cheaper, take Thane for an ability that won't screw with teammates.

The thing which keeps coming to mind for me with this: Thane has never really been that good. He's kind of always under-performed.

6 hours ago, MasterShake2 said:

The problem is...Gina and the Blue Escort are just the best choices.

This is where I'm leaning. I'm still kinda skeptical of Gina, but I don't think other options are any good. I keep intending to fly Kullbee Sperado, but never get around to it. Maybe Dutch Vader with Proton Plasma Torpedoes at 53 49 points is a great addition to any rebel list, but Torpedo builds can easily go wrong if you mess up the ranges, and everyone already has double mods. Thane is historically Meh. Cassian and Wedge have been priced out of the equation.

So what's left? Gina might come in handy, and Blues are solid ships.

51 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

So what's left? Gina might come in handy, and Blues are solid ships.

Relevant topic:

On 6/7/2020 at 10:57 PM, Smikies02 said:

I will defend blackout as well. However I'll defend that he's only a tanky ps5 interceptor, that can get free offensive mods (fanatical).

His ability is usually a trap or tech vs droids.

BO vs Kylo is no contest at 13 points. Free calculates every round is that good.

Funfact:

Generally BO averages more damage not shooting through a gas cloud than through one. Exceptions are 2 -> 1 with focus and 1 -> 0

bUt muH TriCKsHoT bLaCkOUt

18 hours ago, theBitterFig said:

The thing which keeps coming to mind for me with this: Thane has never really been that good. He's kind of always under-performed.

Thane is very middle of the road, which to me is fine. The odd piece of him is that his ability would be great at a lower initiative.

His effectiveness truly depends on what crits he can flip. Direct Hit, Panicked Pilot, and Disabled Powered Regulator are game changers since you can keep hammering a target that has them, but plenty other crits don't matter.

All it takes is 2 months of not having real events and everyone is back to playing fun stuff instead of imp/republic ace vs boba vs vulture spam.

X-Wing Co-op RPG WHEN

1 hour ago, 5050Saint said:

Thane is very middle of the road, which to me is fine. The odd piece of him is that his ability would be great at a lower initiative.

His effectiveness truly depends on what crits he can flip. Direct Hit, Panicked Pilot, and Disabled Powered Regulator are game changers since you can keep hammering a target that has them, but plenty other crits don't matter.

Looking again, I'm also working on an outdated perception.

• Thane from June to January: #117 on Meta-Wing
• Thane from January to date: #22 on Meta-Wing

He used to be pretty far down, but that was in a time when other Rebels were just better. I think back then, I was of the opinion that Thane was probably a little underrated, but then bought into him being bad, since he never really worked out. And for most of the history of 2e, he hasn't really succeeded. But times have changed.

Odd, since he hasn't changed at all. Same price, no new upgrades that are great with him, and no relevant rulings.

1 hour ago, theBitterFig said:

• Thane from June to January: #117 on Meta-Wing
• Thane from January to date: #22 on Meta-Wing

Odd, since he hasn't changed at all. Same price, no new upgrades that are great with him, and no relevant rulings.

hyperspace (now) vs first edition (then)?

1 hour ago, theBitterFig said:

Looking again, I'm also working on an outdated perception.

• Thane from June to January: #117 on Meta-Wing
• Thane from January to date: #22 on Meta-Wing

He used to be pretty far down, but that was in a time when other Rebels were just better. I think back then, I was of the opinion that Thane was probably a little underrated, but then bought into him being bad, since he never really worked out. And for most of the history of 2e, he hasn't really succeeded. But times have changed.

Odd, since he hasn't changed at all. Same price, no new upgrades that are great with him, and no relevant rulings.

To be fair, January to date is not a lot of events (most of them stopped about a third/half through that). I don't think the data for the current hyperspace season is going to be super useful for analysis.

Sure sure sure, low data, hyperspace, etc.

But still seems like there's enough to suggest folks reexamine old assumptions about Thane's mediocrity.

23 hours ago, LUZ_TAK said:

Everytime I dialed a red to dogfight with an action and give stress to another Bwing... so plenty.

Forgot to mention that I also use it plenty to help when forced to bump. Last game was vs 8 ties and it triggered A LOT.

32 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

Sure sure sure, low data, hyperspace, etc.

But still seems like there's enough to suggest folks reexamine old assumptions about Thane's mediocrity.

It's not impossible, but I also feel like Thane is a meta pick i.e. you want him on the table when there are relevant targets that will keep damage cards for a period of time (aces and beefy win condition ships like Boba) because he can amplify even minor damage into serious problems (whoops, looks like you got a bad case of Structural Damage!). He's probably fairly costed? Beef lists, he's iffy if it's a shield heavy beef list (B-Wings) and not great against things like TIEs or Droids that only have a narrow spectrum between full health and dead, probably fine into sinker swarm, but I don't think he's happy with 6 ships floating around even if he can manipulate cards on one of them. Then there's also some order of activations stuff, where he shoots before a lot of your stuff unless you build to try and mitigate that, so you have like a 2 turn setup for him to work unless you build around it.

Ref previous statement: It's not impossible he's worth it, but he's been pretty random for my games from situationally brilliant to basically irrelevant over a blue escort.

@Brunas is something awry with your delightful advancedtargeting.computer? I feel like there are some big names missing from the data. Surely Soontir Fel can't be so obscure that he's being filtered out of ATC?

25 minutes ago, DoubleDown11 said:

@Brunas is something awry with your delightful advancedtargeting.computer? I feel like there are some big names missing from the data. Surely Soontir Fel can't be so obscure that he's being filtered out of ATC?

Its good format data only.

Legitimate question: Are Stabilized S-Foils a 0pt upgrade?

-Barrel Roll -> Lock offers very few advantages over Focus -> Barrel Roll for generics, Braylen and Gina. you can maybe get a lock to save later, but that means you're getting stressed while not shooting which is only situationally the right call.

-Barrel Roll -> Evade is almost never good (I've used it in 2 games and it didn't do anything

-You can't flip if you're critically damaged which is the part of the game where the Barrel Roll -> Evade is theoretically the most useful (I've had to stop myself from flipping it twice when I remembered this). While a cool lore callout to B-Wings gyro stabilizer being temperamental and easily damaged, it's also a condition on something that isn't that good to begin with

-Both above actions have anti-synergy with Ten and Braylen because the Barrel Roll is first, so you can't just fail into the stress, which is probably intentional, but also holds it back with the two best pilots

-The Cannon trick is only really useful to Braylen and Ten because of innate dice modification off of stress and, for all other pilots, has a fair bit of setup for very little payoff (you need the lock, the target has to be in both range an arc of cannon and primary, you have to shoot the same target, and all of that only works if you also paid for a cannon in the first place).

When they first announced it, I thought it would be 0pts because it doesn't do anything without setup for everybody but Ten. Am I crazy with this?

1 hour ago, MasterShake2 said:

Legitimate question: Are Stabilized S-Foils a 0pt upgrade?

-Barrel Roll -> Lock offers very few advantages over Focus -> Barrel Roll for generics, Braylen and Gina. you can maybe get a lock to save later, but that means you're getting stressed while not shooting which is only situationally the right call.

-Barrel Roll -> Evade is almost never good (I've used it in 2 games and it didn't do anything

-You can't flip if you're critically damaged which is the part of the game where the Barrel Roll -> Evade is theoretically the most useful (I've had to stop myself from flipping it twice when I remembered this). While a cool lore callout to B-Wings gyro stabilizer being temperamental and easily damaged, it's also a condition on something that isn't that good to begin with

-Both above actions have anti-synergy with Ten and Braylen because the Barrel Roll is first, so you can't just fail into the stress, which is probably intentional, but also holds it back with the two best pilots

-The Cannon trick is only really useful to Braylen and Ten because of innate dice modification off of stress and, for all other pilots, has a fair bit of setup for very little payoff (you need the lock, the target has to be in both range an arc of cannon and primary, you have to shoot the same target, and all of that only works if you also paid for a cannon in the first place).

When they first announced it, I thought it would be 0pts because it doesn't do anything without setup for everybody but Ten. Am I crazy with this?

I personally agree with you, I would say though that the roll into red evade can be nice, but the card has risks where if critically damaged one can't flip the card.

Whenever I fly the generics the card never pops in my head due to its point cost and the ability to actually benefit from it.

1 hour ago, MasterShake2 said:

Legitimate question: Are Stabilized S-Foils a 0pt upgrade?

No, they're priced where they need to be, unless you're game for FFG to drop Vet Tur Gunner back down to 6 as well as reducing you're dirt cheap double tap to the only cost of the cannon. Or are you angling to keep anything other than a B-Wing from carrying cannons by adding the current cost of their S-Foils to the price of cannons?

6 minutes ago, Hiemfire said:

No, they're priced where they need to be, unless you're game for FFG to drop Vet Tur Gunner back down to 6 as well as reducing you're dirt cheap double tap to the only cost of the cannon. Or are you angling to keep anything other than a B-Wing from carrying cannons by adding the current cost of their S-Foils to the price of cannons?

So, it's not a dirt cheap double tap. You have to buy cannon, acquire lock, not spend lock to mod dice, have the target in both primary and cannon arcs and attack the same target you locked. It's more of an infinite use cluster missile that you have to spend the lock on and nobody plays cluster missiles.

11 minutes ago, MasterShake2 said:

So, it's not a dirt cheap double tap. You have to buy cannon, acquire lock, not spend lock to mod dice, have the target in both primary and cannon arcs and attack the same target you locked. It's more of an infinite use cluster missile that you have to spend the lock on and nobody plays cluster missiles.

So 8 points max currently (Ion cannon), 7 with HLC, 5 with Tractor, 2 for Jamming beam (VTG at it's cheapest was a 8 - 9 point upgrade (6 for bowtie primarys), it is now a 13 -15 point upgrade (10 for bowtie primaries)). In a faction with a cheap coordinate option that permits the coordinated ship to basically ignore being stressed for its action. On a platform where stress = easy mods for 2 out of the 3 limited pilots. 2 points is the dead minimum Stabilized S-Foils is worth.