Raid Tokens and their effect on the game

By CaribbeanNinja, in Star Wars: Armada

I was really actually excited about this Taskmaster dude, Giving that extra Squad activation, or maybe buffing an Interdictor's repair commands. Until I now realize that the raid tokens will probably change everything.

Or will they?

What do you think the Raid Tokens will do to the game?

Just now, CaribbeanNinja said:

I was really actually excited about this Taskmaster dude, Giving that extra Squad activation, or maybe buffing an Interdictor's repair commands. Until I now realize that the raid tokens will probably change everything.

Or will they?

What do you think the Raid Tokens will do to the game?

Hard to say with what little useful information we have.

We have hype, but no reality.

Without knowing their duration idk but with either currently know method of use i doubt theyll be super effective

I think they will be as common as Slicer Tools...

Yeah doing a little assuming. I'm assuming there will be a way to remove the tokens. (I'm guessing right now that it might be to discard a matching dial? And I think that if so, Slicers would actually get a boost. All assumptions of course.)

I'm saying it is safe to assume that they are removable, because if not...The raid token deliverers are very much OP. (IMO)

They are going to change everything.

Welcome to the new Meta.

(Now I wait and see if they are really good and I can point to this and look like I know what I’m talking about, or post a sarcastic tag next to it if they turn out to be crud.)

Edited by GrandAdmiralCrunch

I do think they are interesting, but I'm not sure how common Raids will actually be. Jyn suffers from timing difficulties, but I could see giving her a try.

The squadrons are poor stats wise for the cost (as compared to a YT-2400), but the ability to repeatedly use the ability makes them much more interesting to me than Jyn. They could be REALLY punishing, or just kinda annoying.

Either way it is fun to have another tool in the tool box.

They are game changers. It's changed the game. Literally.

Without knowing how long the last or if there is any mechanism to remove them (or if there even IS a way to remove them) we won't know how much they are going to shake things up.

My subscription is that they will weaken commands possibly permanently for that ship. I don't think we'll see a way to block commands that seem a little too powerful. Also that would be a serious core rule disruption, while not a bad thing per say but it sounds like it will be fairly plentiful and that's not good for a core mechanic to be so constantly changed.

It's been confirmed by one of the playtesters that there is a method to remove raid tokens.

Edited by Snipafist

It seems safe to assume that, at the very least, they will prevent the target from resolving a command once . Even if they just disappear immediately after this happens (e.g. when a matching command would be resolved), that's enough to completely ruin a carrier's day. Or send an MC30 careening off into deep space at speed 4 :P

12 minutes ago, DiabloAzul said:

It seems safe to assume that, at the very least, they will prevent the target from resolving a command once . Even if they just disappear immediately after this happens (e.g. when a matching command would be resolved), that's enough to completely ruin a carrier's day. Or send an MC30 careening off into deep space at speed 4 :P

Hehe. My thoughts too.

High cost but occasionally spectacular results. Will be very opportunistic

Stat-wise, they're pretty bad. Yes they're Speed 4 with 7 Hull and Rogue, but they're not going to put out a lot of damage for 20pts. Still, even one or two of them will change how your opponent plays the game. You can't ignore them. If you do, they're just going to shut down a specific command on a ship that really wants that command. Even if Raid tokens are discarded when you reveal a matching dial, if you ignore them and they do it every turn , you'll never get that command off again. So you have to keep them from firing on your ships, whether that is by destroying them or sending a squadron to tie them up. At a minimum, they're affecting your squadron game. Against a dedicated fighter ball, they're going to be a waste of points on the Imperial player's end if they're your only squadrons. But what if you take two of them and a smaller bomber ball? Which do you stop with your fighters? The bombers or the ones that can shut your commands down? A dedicated fighter ball won't worry about it much, but someone who takes a small speedbump force? Which one do you speed bump? With Rogue and Speed 4, they can deploy wide and sneak around the flanks.

Regarding Raid Tokens: Once a raid token is applied to a ship, my prediction is that it will take either the next matching command dial OR a matching command token to get rid of the raid token. Anything else would make the raid token too OP...

12 minutes ago, DiabloAzul said:

It seems safe to assume that, at the very least, they will prevent the target from resolving a command once . Even if they just disappear immediately after this happens (e.g. when a matching command would be resolved), that's enough to completely ruin a carrier's day. Or send an MC30 careening off into deep space at speed 4 :P

That's enough to do a LOT of damage, if there is no way to counter it. If it's a 100% command prevention even for just one command, that hugely devalues Slicer Tools, particularly when released in the same expansion as an admiral that completely negates them.

I may eat my hat on this one, but for now I'll trust that the removal mechanism, whatever it is, will be as trivial and useful as Leia, SFO, and Thrawn are to Slicers.

Also, Jyn and Gauntlet say "**** you, BTVenger!"

You mean gaining, rather than resolving, a command? Yeah, that would make sense.

Also, with the release of the MGS squads and their Assault ability in every turn it can do it's thing, doesn't that devalue Jyn's one time use? Her cost seems too high in comparison to the squads...

2 minutes ago, Ardaedhel said:

Also, Jyn and Gauntlet say "**** you, BTVenger!"

Why?

Would you consider that a squad raid token would prevent them from spending the token and card to fulfill boarding troopers? It's not resolving a squad command, or even spending a token for a squad effect. I would think that Raid does relatively little to BTvenger as long as it already has the token banked.

I think the raid tokens are going to be an excellent addition to the game, but I don't think they're going to be abused as badly as some people may think they will be. They'll be amazing for shutting down ships that spam the same commands all game (carriers, for example) and for weakening stronger ships. I'm excited to see what they do for the game.

Jyn Erso's a one time use and won't hit until the 3rd or 4th round of the game on average.

The Gauntlet Fighters are expensive to own multiples of (you'd have to buy two Chimera packs just for 4 of them), have a significant cost to add to a fleet at 20 points per squadron, are easy to get tied up by the opponent's squadrons, and look sub-par when it comes to fighting other squadrons.

With what's going to be available, I honestly don't think it would be a huge problem if raid tokens couldn't be removed. The game only lasts 6 rounds after all. But that could be a problem for design space further down the line, so it's probably safer to assume they can be removed one way or another.

4 minutes ago, Ardaedhel said:

Also, Jyn and Gauntlet say "**** you, BTVenger!"

Dependens on the exact wording of the Raid rules I guess.

Operating on the assumption that you have to "spend" a command of the appropriate type to remove a raid token, this seems like another anti-carrier tool, with some significant implications for Yavaris / Aceholes.

It's definitely an expensive squadron, but 1-2 should be sufficient to be adequately disruptive, especially given their hull, speed, and rogue keyword.

I actually think that the raid token effect would have been a better way for squadrons to work in the game than dealing actual damage; squadrons applying some kind of buff/debuff effect would have made them important and irksome, but they wouldn't have had to be so complex as they currently are.

5 minutes ago, itzSteve said:

Also, with the release of the MGS squads and their Assault ability in every turn it can do it's thing, doesn't that devalue Jyn's one time use? Her cost seems too high in comparison to the squads...

You do actually have to land the hit with the fighters. I know I'll be rolling crit acc a lot.

2 minutes ago, Viktor Tanek said:

You do actually have to land the hit with the fighters. I know I'll be rolling crit acc a lot.

I am trying not to account for my worthless blue die rolling abilities. It is why Toryn Farr is my BAE... :D

4 minutes ago, Viktor Tanek said:

You do actually have to land the hit with the fighters. I know I'll be rolling crit acc a lot.

All you need is BCC Toryn Farr Palpatine . :P