Just add: "...if this crew card is equipped to a U wing, you may fire at a target outside of your primary firing arc."

Donesies

I'd sooner add a "Doorgunner" mod with that effect and the requirement that a crew upgrade card is also present.

1 minute ago, Kingsguard said:

I'd sooner add a "Doorgunner" mod with that effect and the requirement that a crew upgrade card is also present.

Just add a Door Gunner crew card...

30 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

Just add a Door Gunner crew card...

Snap Shot is a secondary weapon sitting in an elite slot. There's no reason you couldn't have a secondary weapon sitting in a crew slot.

1 minute ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Snap Shot is a secondary weapon sitting in an elite slot. There's no reason you couldn't have a secondary weapon sitting in a crew slot.

My point entirely.

25 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Snap Shot is a secondary weapon sitting in an elite slot. There's no reason you couldn't have a secondary weapon sitting in a crew slot.

But Bistan was a door gunner. And it would give the poor space monkey a reason to be.

Bistan could just be a more dope door gunner than the generic Joe. Much in the same way Cassian Andor is superior to Intelligence Agent.

Auzituck would like it also.

2 hours ago, BlodVargarna said:

But Bistan was a door gunner. And it would give the poor space monkey a reason to be.

I think the original intent went somewhere along the lines of "look at him, he hit the AT-ACT's knee joint in one go".

Maybe the "door gunner needs a Crew Card to combo" idea could be a Crew upgrade depicting the gun Emplacement (as in, the space is used up), making for instant Captain Ersatz-YV666s. Honestly, I'd think this could be fun on two-crew ships, opening up old classics like the Lambda for some new builds.

It's also hilarious in the mind's eye. Imagine Moff Jerjerrod or C-3PO slinging a space-M60 out of a space-Huey.

Maybe:

Door gunner:

crew card

Attack r1-2 3 dice outside primary firing arc

You may not equip this card if you have a special firing arc or a primary weapon turret

I still think Bistan should be a stand alone door gunner card.

Door Gunner: choose a target for a 2-dice attack. The target may be outside your firing arc. Before rolling dice, verify if your play mat indicates you are on a planet. If so, continue as normal. If it does not, destroy this ship. Fling any crew cards to the side as you make a "whoosh" sound.

Bistan's actually pretty decent I think, there just aren't any good Rebel abilities (yet) that trigger off of landing a crit. Ten Numb is the only one, and if he were 2-3 points cheaper then I think BisTen would see some play. Bistan would be used plenty if he were scum or Imperial (Bossk, Kylo, etc.).

1 hour ago, Pewpewpew BOOM said:

Door Gunner: choose a target for a 2-dice attack. The target may be outside your firing arc. Before rolling dice, verify if your play mat indicates you are on a planet. If so, continue as normal. If it does not, destroy this ship. Fling any crew cards to the side as you make a "whoosh" sound.

lol Star Wars has personal air supply forcefields doors being open in space REALLY shouldn't worry anyone.

1 hour ago, RampancyTW said:

Bistan's actually pretty decent I think, there just aren't any good Rebel abilities (yet) that trigger off of landing a crit. Ten Numb is the only one, and if he were 2-3 points cheaper then I think BisTen would see some play. Bistan would be used plenty if he were scum or Imperial (Bossk, Kylo, etc.).

He's better than Merc Copilot, but that's not saying much. Upgrading a hit to a crit just isn't that valuable.

1 hour ago, Pewpewpew BOOM said:

Door Gunner: choose a target for a 2-dice attack. The target may be outside your firing arc. Before rolling dice, verify if your play mat indicates you are on a planet. If so, continue as normal. If it does not, destroy this ship. Fling any crew cards to the side as you make a "whoosh" sound.

In fairness, atmospheric shields are a thing, and a lot of recent dogfights have been atmospheric (Takodana, Jakku, Scarif, bits of Starkiller Base)

1 hour ago, BlodVargarna said:

Door gunner:

crew card

Attack r1-2 3 dice outside primary firing arc

You may not equip this card if you have a special firing arc or a primary weapon turret

I still think Bistan should be a stand alone door gunner card.

Agreed I'd suggest the following:

• Range 1-2 makes sense
• You must attack a target outside your firing arc
• 4 (?) dice attack. If this attack hits, cancel all [Hit] results.

Essentially, you've got a shot which is really hard to dodge, but only actually ever inflicts criticals. Which makes sense to me - a man-portable weapon will have trouble hurting a starfighter except for 'lucky hits' - and also means that the combination of Door Gunner and Bistan is a really good one.

Just now, thespaceinvader said:

He's better than Merc Copilot, but that's not saying much. Upgrading a hit to a crit just isn't that valuable.

See " there just aren't any good Rebel abilities (yet) that trigger off of landing a crit." The card is fine in a vacuum, where it's found lacking is in a Rebel context.

It's rarely worth paying for the ability to upgrade a hit to a crit even on ships that care though. I always question thew value of e.g. Mangler on Bossk for instance. It's a minimal return on the investment, as opposed to spending those points on, say, Rey crew which gets you MORE hits, rather than just better ones.

More hits is WAY better than better hits.

3 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

It's rarely worth paying for the ability to upgrade a hit to a crit even on ships that care though. I always question thew value of e.g. Mangler on Bossk for instance. It's a minimal return on the investment, as opposed to spending those points on, say, Rey crew which gets you MORE hits, rather than just better ones.

More hits is WAY better than better hits.

Mangler Bossk IS adding more hits. That's the entire point. Bistan would do the same thing (at half the points!) in a 180-degree arc at range 1-2. Huge danger zone. If it's up against a 3-agi token-stacker, then yeah, not great, but every ship is going to have weak matchups. Upgrading your primary attack value by 1 against 1-2agi ships for only 2 points? You'd be hard-pressed to find a better usage of 2 points in that list.

Just as an example (and just 1 point more than a standard 4-LOM/Zuckuss Bossk Bus):

Bossk(35)

-Crack Shot (1)
-Dampeners (1)
-Zuck or 4-LOM (1)
-Dengar (3)
-Bistan (2)

In a 0-2 agi meta, is that REALLY going to see significantly less play than a Zuck + 4-LOM bus?

7 minutes ago, RampancyTW said:

Mangler Bossk IS adding more hits. That's the entire point. Bistan would do the same thing (at half the points!) in a 180-degree arc at range 1-2. Huge danger zone. If it's up against a 3-agi token-stacker, then yeah, not great, but every ship is going to have weak matchups. Upgrading your primary attack value by 1 against 1-2agi ships for only 2 points? You'd be hard-pressed to find a better usage of 2 points in that list.

Mangler Bossk is adding more hits in a small area, IF you're hitting shields, but only due to Bossk's ability.

Otherwise you're often better off with the crit anyway.

Bistan is making your hits crits, which is scary for low agility high hull people, but still not that good for two points, compared to Rey or Sabine, or half a dozen other crew. He's NOT upgrading your attack value. Say you roll and get hit hit hit. WIthout him, you get hit hit hit. With him, you get hit hit crit.

With Rey's extra focus, you roll hit hit eye, you get hit hit hit. With Bistan, you roll hit hit eye, you get hit crit eye, he doesn't make your attack bigger at all.

4 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

Mangler Bossk is adding more hits in a small area, IF you're hitting shields, but only due to Bossk's ability.

Otherwise you're often better off with the crit anyway.

Bistan is making your hits crits, which is scary for low agility high hull people, but still not that good for two points, compared to Rey or Sabine, or half a dozen other crew. He's NOT upgrading your attack value. Say you roll and get hit hit hit. WIthout him, you get hit hit hit. With him, you get hit hit crit.

With Rey's extra focus, you roll hit hit eye, you get hit hit hit. With Bistan, you roll hit hit eye, you get hit crit eye, he doesn't make your attack bigger at all.

...Unless it hits, in which case you just made your attack bigger.

It's ridiculous to say that Rey adding 1 hit for 2 points or Sabine adding 1 hit for 2 points is worth it, but Bistan adding 1 hit for 2 points is not. It's also ignoring that (unlike Rey), it pushes your max damage up by 1.

Say you get a Range 1 shot. Better chance than not that you're rolling a crit with your initial roll + Dengar rerolls. If you've flown well, you have Dengar + focus already. Your end result without Bistan could be H H H C. With Bistan, it's H H C C, which becomes H H H H C. For 2 points.

Banking focuses is great. Dealing more damage is great, too.

Again, this all circles back to the issue that Rebels don't have cool stuff that triggers off of uncancelled crits. Bistan is fine, and would see play if he weren't faction-locked. It's like the U-Wing itself-- it's a great support craft, without the support crew to make it work. U-Wing with access to Systems and Fleet Officers would absolutely find a solid place in lists. The crew options just aren't there (and hopefully that's a YET).

13 hours ago, BlodVargarna said:

Just add: "...if this crew card is equipped to a U wing, you may fire at a target outside of your primary firing arc."

Donesies

I don't like the idea of giving it a 360 firing arc. However, I do think this could solve that and give the U-Wing a door gunner ability. FFG simply needs to create a piece of plastic that snaps over the round part of the base that adds to the firing arc of the U-Wing. I'll try a crude paint drawing of what I mean. They can make a few of them, put them in a new Heroes of Scarif pack with K2S0.

15 hours ago, BlueSquadronPilot said:

I don't like the idea of giving it a 360 firing arc. However, I do think this could solve that and give the U-Wing a door gunner ability. FFG simply needs to create a piece of plastic that snaps over the round part of the base that adds to the firing arc of the U-Wing. I'll try a crude paint drawing of what I mean. They can make a few of them, put them in a new Heroes of Scarif pack with K2S0.

If a scarif box had new 'baseplates' then yes, that would be a nice thing to do with the U-wing.

Equally, you could use the opportunity to boost up a few other pilots - giving Merrick and his boys a Bullseye arc, for example.

15 hours ago, RampancyTW said:

Again, this all circles back to the issue that Rebels don't have cool stuff that triggers off of uncancelled crits. Bistan is fine, and would see play if he weren't faction-locked. It's like the U-Wing itself-- it's a great support craft, without the support crew to make it work. U-Wing with access to Systems and Fleet Officers would absolutely find a solid place in lists. The crew options just aren't there (and hopefully that's a YET).

Indeed. It's not bad with Operations Specialist (Gunner/FCS/Op Spec is a particularly filthy combo that also provides boosts to the rest of the squad) but it's not like the rebels lack for cheap ways to generate, hand out, and share focus tokens, is it?

And no, given the whole point of both death star engagements and the speeder battle on hoth can broadly be described as 'hit the weak spot', it's weird when you think about it that Rebel heavy fighters have almost no way of exploiting a critical.

About the only way they have is Ten Numb - and Ten Numb, B-Wing/E2, Bistan is a nice combination but ultimately:

• only saves a point over a mangler cannon, and can't be used at range 3.
• also competes with Guidance Chip torpedoes since it takes up the modification slot (Guidance Chip Plasma Torpedoes are rather nice)

He's not bad with an Ion Cannon - making the ion cannon undodgeable at range 1-2 - but at the same time, unavoidable hits aren't a massive deal in the game at the moment because most big names have ~8-10 hit points behind 1-2 agility, not 3-4 behind a million green dice.