Oh, you thought I meant TIE Aggressor? Nah, that guy is fine. Kestal even made top cut at French Nationals!

IGs, however... Not doing so hot.

It's probably not a priority (I'd expect at least the B-Wing, TIE Punisher and Firespray to get buffed before it) but It'd be amazing to see some love for the good ol' Brobots :).

P.S. I generally don't like to go off of raw stats, but in this case they are consistent with my experiences. Being arc-bound, agility-based large ships they are really struggling.

Brobots are fine, strong even. Not cut out for this meta, but still.

Easiest solution seems like it'd be something to fit into that second cannon slot.

Something like this, maybe?

"Integrated Cannons
0 points, Cannon

When attacking with an equipped Cannon secondary weapon, when the Cannon instructs you to cancel all dice results, you may choose to keep a number of dice equal to your primary attack value."

Basically, it would allow the Aggressor to deal full primary damage while using an Ion, Flechette or Tractor. It would have a lesser boost for the Gunboat, since they only have a primary value of 2, and would not impact any other cannon ships at all.

There are new, cheap cannons coming with the Starwing or whatever the heck it's called, so lets just wait and see.

9 minutes ago, PhantomFO said:

Easiest solution seems like it'd be something to fit into that second cannon slot.

Something like this, maybe?

"Integrated Cannons
0 points, Cannon

When attacking with an equipped Cannon secondary weapon, when the Cannon instructs you to cancel all dice results, you may choose to keep a number of dice equal to your primary attack value."

Basically, it would allow the Aggressor to deal full primary damage while using an Ion, Flechette or Tractor. It would have a lesser boost for the Gunboat, since they only have a primary value of 2, and would not impact any other cannon ships at all.

Not bad for the gunboat, either, honestly - after all, how many times, after the enemy is done spending tokens and defense dice, do you really end up with more than 2 'hit' results on an ion cannon? It's only a 3 dice attack - unless they had no tokens and totally whiffed their defense roll...there isn't going to be much difference, here.

I'd run it! (Although I'd prefer it as a mod - that way the TIE/D, B-Wing, and Scyk could take it, too - and they all need varying levels of help)

29 minutes ago, Sekac said:

There are new, cheap cannons coming with the Starwing or whatever the heck it's called, so lets just wait and see.

Jamming beam appear to cancel die results (possibly 0 damage?) and linked batteries small ship only. Im not holding my breath

6 minutes ago, DragonDante said:

Jamming beam appear to cancel die results (possibly 0 damage?) and linked batteries small ship only. Im not holding my breath

That it's small ship only suggests to me they didn't think the Agressor was in trouble when they made the card.

Given its recent performance, I'm a little surprised at this assumption, but still...

1 hour ago, RufusDaMan said:

Brobots are fine, strong even. Not cut out for this meta, but still.

It pains me to say this, as I spent more than a year playing them and still love them, but BroBots have been utter trash for a long time. They can't withstand or even deal enough damage anymore and have no other shenanigans to fall back on.

And the fact that high-stat ships with access to Autothrusters and built-in Gunner on a FCS-backed HLC have been powercreeped into complete irrelevance should terrify people.

Brobots are still great, but they've been powercreeped out of the game. They also face a lot of the same problems that Imperial ships do: reliance on green dice, actions, and firing arcs. Until that style of play comes back, we won't be seeing Brobots again.

2 hours ago, PhantomFO said:

Easiest solution seems like it'd be something to fit into that second cannon slot.

Something like this, maybe?

"Integrated Cannons
0 points, Cannon

When attacking with an equipped Cannon secondary weapon, when the Cannon instructs you to cancel all dice results, you may choose to keep a number of dice equal to your primary attack value."

Basically, it would allow the Aggressor to deal full primary damage while using an Ion, Flechette or Tractor. It would have a lesser boost for the Gunboat, since they only have a primary value of 2, and would not impact any other cannon ships at all.

That... is a REALLY ******* cool upgrade. Still, it shouldn't be free, though. Part of the game is proper point allocation, and it's powerful enough to warrant an extra point, anyways. I like it!

I still do fine with them in my local meta with my personal list.

I just think people are flying them wrong.

Yes. Just fix everything.

Yeesh. Enough already.

I don't think the Agressor per say needs a fix, juts that cannons in general, high agility ships and large ships with standard arcs are suffering at the moment.

if the Gunboat comes with a hot new cannon then they may see some more play (or if something that utilised that double cannon slot appears...)

2 hours ago, RufusDaMan said:

Brobots are fine, strong even. Not cut out for this meta, but still.

Sentence 1 disagrees with sentence 2.

If you have to qualify it by saying, essentially, "you can't play them right now, but they're good, I swear!" then you're just being deceitful!

Soontir's virtually untouchable, you'll almost never lose with him, provided conditions a., b., and c. are met in your opponent's list.

a.) No PS 9+

b.) No bombs or unblockable damage

c.) No stress mechanics

...wow he sure sounds like he's in a fine place.

Aggressors have a really cool stat line with high green dice, but it's hard to leverage, because of their narrow arc. So you need to boost, which can be hard to fit, but then you're not taking focus tokens, unless you have Push the Limit, but then you can't hard-turn. Oh, and you need to Segnor's Loop a bunch, too. It wouldn't be so bad if they weren't each half your list. An x/7 Defender can miss an arc more frequently, because they're only a third of your list. And while the HLC buzzsaw isn't bad, I'm remembering a thread here the other day on why Gunner isn't quite as popular anymore: it just isn't needed against most of today's ships.

As to fixes... Star Viper Mk. II has opened the door to double-titles, so how about this: "Junkbot. 0 points. Aggressor only, Scum only. Title. You may equip a second Title. Reduce the cost by one (to a minimum of zero) of each upgrade on this ship which is not on any other friendly ship." Yes, it's a boring point reduction. But it works in an odd way, and only trims points on asymmetric bots (or when you're running a single Aggressor). Outfit one IG-88 with Expertise, HLC, FCS. Put PtL, Mangler, and AdvS on the other. Add a healthy spicing of bombs and illicit tricks. I was just mathing things out, and it gets kinda nutty, easily saving five or more points per ship. That might be excessive.

Hrm. Alternate idea "Junkbot. 0 points. [title overhead] During the place forces step, place a tracking token on this card for each upgrade on this ship which is not on any other friendly ship. Any time you roll dice, you may remove any number of tracking token from this card to reroll that many of your dice." It provides a unique sort of resource to manage--four tokens per ship seems easy to accomplish. I'm not sure if that's so many rerolls that it'll be game-breaking in terms of versatility, or if it's far too few to matter.

~~

Anyhow, enough brobots. Suppose Inaldra has droid sisters (at least until the possible Attanni nerf goes out).

Inaldra, Light Scyk, Attanni Mindlink

IG-88-B & C, each with Attanni Mindlink, Title, FCS, Autothrusters, Flechette Cannon.

B pulls a S-Loop. C dials a Green, clearing the stress they took from ATML. Next turn, while B is still stressed and won't get a stress token, C pulls a K-Turn, then B dials a green and can Boost or Evade. The Flechette isn't a very strong cannon, so you aim to get work done with the primary. However, a second-chance shot is still nice to have, and the healthy quantity of focus and evade tokens goes a long way towards staying alive.

Not till the firespray gets fixed first!!

6 hours ago, Elavion said:

Is it time to start asking for an Aggressor fix?

No!

8 hours ago, RufusDaMan said:

Brobots are fine, strong even. Not cut out for this meta, but still.

They have done well recently - I recall someone winning a store championship with them - but the key is that they did well because they weren't heavy laser cannon boats - in a world with relatively low agility (1-2) ships with ludicruous mobility and a preference for bombs and torpedoes, he correctly switched to a variant of the IG-88s equipping control tools - rigged cargo chutes, ion cannons, connor nets and so on. An ionized bomber can't put mines in your way, and an ionized/stressed Dengar loses both expertise and K4 security droid.

Heavy Laser Cannon boats aren't as good as they were - partly because of power creep (I'm not going to deny it exists) but also because of the meta: not a case of power so much as a case of being badly suited:

• IG-88B/Fire Control System requires you to miss. Dengar/Dash Rendar/Miranda Doni/Nym/Norra Wexley and the rest are potentially only going to take 1 or 2 damage, but the attack won't miss, which means you get significantly fewer 'free shots'. Fenn Rau might dodge it at range 3, but you can't fire the thing at range 1 (where he'll be trying to be), so that balances out. By comparison, the evade/focus aces, which two successive Heavy Laser Shots preyed on so well, have largely disappeared.
• Ordnance has 'caught up' with cannons in value for money. Heavy Laser Cannons were 'a thing' because it was unlimited 4-dice attacks - the thing is that a 4-dice missile, extra munitions, and guidance chips, costs about the same and hits harder (thanks to guidance chips) - yes, you only get 2 shots, but 2 is enough - a lot of the time a ship will go down in a couple of turns with umpty-ump cruise missiles flying back and forth.

I'm not saying I'm expecting them to roll over the opposition at championships, but they can do well. Just don't jump from "Brobots" to "2 IG-88s in exactly the same configuration they used to have"; you can modify the cannon loadouts to your expected opposition - you will need to do so.

8 hours ago, PhantomFO said:

Basically, it would allow the Aggressor to deal full primary damage while using an Ion, Flechette or Tractor. It would have a lesser boost for the Gunboat, since they only have a primary value of 2, and would not impact any other cannon ships at all.

B-Wings would be useable as a title. And btw it would be awesome for the gunboat as well. 2 damage should be enough for ions, etc

Would not mind a little diversity to IG builds.

.... Its definitely time enough to start asking for Tie Aggressor buffs. They're yuck.

A simple Errata on the title would do the job.

You have the pilot and EPT ability of each other friendly ship with the IG-2000 Upgrade card (in addition to your own abilities).

this would enable some great double combos without extra cost.

PTL and fearlessness would be good with autoblaster cannon on B and C. Boost, evade, focus, fire primary get TL from FCS then fire cannon add a hit get 3-4 uncancelable hits. Has to be at R1 and in each others arcs but still pretty nasty.

I routinely play with dual IGs to try out new concepts and because they are fun ships to fly. I have tried a ton of combinations from every cannon to minefield mapper with cluster mines (I would create a blob in the center which in many scenarios created a "race track" around which my IGs rotated, it was hilarious).

They can win tournaments, specifically small ones that last 3 rounds or so as they can catch players by surprise. Things get more difficult when you go 4+ rounds and if you go in the top X then you're kind of screwed. To win with them, you need a flawless performance combined with above average dice rolls (superb dice rolls don't hold up in long tournaments). Most games can go to time, which is also very hard endurance wise. Combine this with dozens of bad matchups and with a lot of ships being able to arc dodge them... and quite frankly, it's not worth the hassle.

I find that for the same price, I can get a fully loaded Ventress which is better in almost every way and is far less stressful to fly (but can cause a lot more headaches for your opponent).

What if we got a competetive Epic-OP-Format where you could field 3 or 4 IGs legally?

1 minute ago, Hannes Solo said:

What if we got a competetive Epic-OP-Format where you could field 3 or 4 IGs legally?

I'm not sure what that means. Are you talking about trying 4 IG-88s in standard epic play? We have an epic league and those who have tried it have had less than stellar success (games ending 300 to 40 and such).

15 hours ago, PhantomFO said:

Easiest solution seems like it'd be something to fit into that second cannon slot.

Something like this, maybe?

"Integrated Cannons
0 points, Cannon

When attacking with an equipped Cannon secondary weapon, when the Cannon instructs you to cancel all dice results, you may choose to keep a number of dice equal to your primary attack value."

Basically, it would allow the Aggressor to deal full primary damage while using an Ion, Flechette or Tractor. It would have a lesser boost for the Gunboat, since they only have a primary value of 2, and would not impact any other cannon ships at all.

Very interesting. As others have pointed out, a cost might be necessary, but it would open a lot of possibilities for different cannon types.

2 hours ago, Storgar said:

A simple Errata on the title would do the job.

You have the pilot and EPT ability of each other friendly ship with the IG-2000 Upgrade card (in addition to your own abilities).

this would enable some great double combos without extra cost.

PTL and fearlessness would be good with autoblaster cannon on B and C. Boost, evade, focus, fire primary get TL from FCS then fire cannon add a hit get 3-4 uncancelable hits. Has to be at R1 and in each others arcs but still pretty nasty.

I could picture this with advanced sensors, one IG with predator and the other with PTL. That would allow the IG to approch with a nice stack of defensive tokens and still have some rerolls. So that could also work.