I’m with the Krayts on this one. Yes, Harpoons are power creep and they’re rules creep; but their effect on the meta has been overwhelmingly positive. You think Gunboats would be top tier competitive without Harpoons? Would we even see Kimogilas? How about all those Imperial aces that have started making cuts consistently? Harpoons are putting small based, arced ships back in the game. That means arcs matter, and that means decisions matter. Only place where I see them as an issue is Nymranda, but that squad would be an issue regardless; it’s a price I’m willing to pay.

Just take a moment to think—what would the meta look like without these harpoon squads? It would be a bunch of Nymranda, fortressing Ghosts, and timewalk Asajj; and that’s it. I can’t think of another meta list right now that doesn’t rely on Poons. Stop with the nerf herding, folks. This is a good card.

Sure, make us Imperials all have to buy Scum expansion packs. It's like Autothrusters all over again. And once sales for Guns for Hire have declined, they'll include Harpoon Missiles in an Imperial pack.

/salt

are you allowed to say "Don't Nerf" something on the forums?

Shirley the title should be 'Please DON'T JUST nerf Harpoons', then?

3 minutes ago, Parakitor said:

Sure, make us Imperials all have to buy Scum expansion packs. It's like Autothrusters all over again. And once sales for Guns for Hire have declined, they'll include Harpoon Missiles in an Imperial pack.

/salt

...but apparently we do need their sweet tech!

Could we just make chips a free upgrade? (ie You may equip 1 additional Modification upgrade that costs X or fewer squad points.) Nvm, cause then the problem ships become even better *sigh*

13 minutes ago, Parakitor said:

Sure, make us Imperials all have to buy Scum expansion packs. It's like Autothrusters all over again.

Even if I agreed with the OP about Harpoons (I don't) but yeah. I stared X-Wing during the Millenium Falcon drought, and we recently had the K-Wing drought. Not so much fun.

I guess it's time to buy up all the Guns for Hire packs I can, and then sell them on ebay once the drought hits.

I'm a big believer that it's harpoons, AND ONLY harpoons, that are keeping Imps relevant in the meta currently. Without harpoons Imps would have no tools to deal with the ultra-reliable defenses of rebels and Assaj. If harpoons get a big nerf, Imps evaporate.

Seriously, the only Imp list I EVER see without harpoons is TLT Aggressors.

I'm with OP- they're making arcs matter again, and the meta is the most diverse it's been in ages.

So a thought on this...

Typical timewalk Asajj needs 3-4 hits to actually get a single hit through and assign the condition. If you are only doing 1 damage on average to her anyway, is it reasonable to consider a re-write of the card to be "attack -4, if this attack hits cancel all dice and deal damage equal to the last uncancelled dice. Then assign the Harpooned! condition card".

This way - if you punch through a crit, she takes a crit. If she's already harpooned you trigger the condition. She's still taking roughly the same damage, but you aren't absolutely punishing low agility ships (that aren't Kanan) and scared to death of the **** things.

4 minutes ago, viedit said:

So a thought on this...

Typical timewalk Asajj needs 3-4 hits to actually get a single hit through and assign the condition. If you are only doing 1 damage on average to her anyway, is it reasonable to consider a re-write of the card to be "attack -4, if this attack hits cancel all dice and deal damage equal to the last uncancelled dice. Then assign the Harpooned! condition card".

This way - if you punch through a crit, she takes a crit. If she's already harpooned you trigger the condition. She's still taking roughly the same damage, but you aren't absolutely punishing low agility ships (that aren't Kanan) and scared to death of the **** things.

Damage equal to the last uncancelled dice..? So it would do 1 damage..? I’m confused at what you are saying here.

Yeah I don't know the exactly how to word that. The intent is the following...if you did hit hit hit blank, and the defender has two evades there is one uncancelled "hit".

If they roll hit hit hit crit and had two evades the last uncancelled damage is a "crit".

In the first scenario all results would be cancelled and you would do a hit(facedown) damage.

In the second all results would be cancelled you would do a crit (faceup) damage.

Treat it similar to a TLT, except it actually does crit damage and applies and can trigger future harpoon conditions.

Yes, leave them alone.

I’m fine with Harpoons outside of the headache they create with the condition, but I will say they aren’t ideal.

Ideally, EVERY 80 degree arc attack would matter, not just harpoon attacks. I would prefer some sort of universal title that allowed me to joust with things other than missile carriers with reload or extra munitions.

How about a buff to Concussion Missiles? Honestly what I really want is to fly gunboats with ion, jamming, and concussion, but that is like the worst gunboat build available.

4 minutes ago, Kdubb said:

I’m fine with Harpoons outside of the headache they create with the condition, but I will say they aren’t ideal.

Ideally, EVERY 80 degree arc attack would matter, not just harpoon attacks. I would prefer some sort of universal title that allowed me to joust with things other than missile carriers with reload or extra munitions.

Reload A-wings with prockets would be a hoot. MakeJakeGreatAgain!

Can't we just make Interceptors great again?

oh thats right so many things have 360 degree fire arcs or TLT

Also without Harpoons you'd see a stupid amount of Magic carpet ride or So many Lowrick lists

no love for the empire

would much rather have Outmanuever just be a standard rule, just with using the attacker's and defender's primary firing arc

this way everyone's arc matters, not just those select few that get to use poons

43 minutes ago, Ailowynn said:

I’m with the Krayts on this one. Yes, Harpoons are power creep and they’re rules creep; but their effect on the meta has been overwhelmingly positive. You think Gunboats would be top tier competitive without Harpoons? Would we even see Kimogilas? How about all those Imperial aces that have started making cuts consistently? Harpoons are putting small based, arced ships back in the game. That means arcs matter, and that means decisions matter. Only place where I see them as an issue is Nymranda, but that squad would be an issue regardless; it’s a price I’m willing to pay.

Just take a moment to think—what would the meta look like without these harpoon squads? It would be a bunch of Nymranda, fortressing Ghosts, and timewalk Asajj; and that’s it. I can’t think of another meta list right now that doesn’t rely on Poons. Stop with the nerf herding, folks. This is a good card.

The thing is, cruise missiles were already doing a perfectly fine job of this before they very quickly went from the best missile to obsolete due to the release of harpoons.

As long as harpoons go un-nerfed swarms are never, ever coming back.

So yeah, it's great that harpoons make arcs matter, but single-handedly erasing an entire squad archetype is not worth the cost.

Harpoons are stupid and bad for the game.

55 minutes ago, Ailowynn said:

I’m with the Krayts on this one. Yes, Harpoons are power creep and they’re rules creep; but their effect on the meta has been overwhelmingly positive. You think Gunboats would be top tier competitive without Harpoons? Would we even see Kimogilas? How about all those Imperial aces that have started making cuts consistently? Harpoons are putting small based, arced ships back in the game. That means arcs matter, and that means decisions matter. Only place where I see them as an issue is Nymranda, but that squad would be an issue regardless; it’s a price I’m willing to pay.

Just take a moment to think—what would the meta look like without these harpoon squads? It would be a bunch of Nymranda, fortressing Ghosts, and timewalk Asajj; and that’s it. I can’t think of another meta list right now that doesn’t rely on Poons. Stop with the nerf herding, folks. This is a good card.

Hold on, let's go back. The only thing that Harpoons does that concussion missile doesn't is splash on a crit, which makes Wookkies and Biggs less of a threat. Concussion missiles on LRS with TL and Focus very often nets you 4 hits directly (its like 90%). Harpoons a something more like 75-80% of 4 hits. So they actually are in a way comparable.. (cept that extra damage and that 10% less is still more dmg than Concussions. And splash helps keep dumb stuff like Wookkies down.)

First of all, if you need Harpoons to be competitive as a small based arc ship that means THE GAME IS DARN BROKEN. And I've been saying this all the way since wave5 (the wave of large based turrets). They're dumb, and there's literally ZERO counter cards in the whole game for 13 waves for large based turret ships. (Autothrusters doesn't count: They help, but nowadays, you can pump damage through with 4 dice). Therefore, your premise ... while at first a good thing, isn't logically sound.

Let's look at it another way: Asajj's ability is straight up too powerful. That combined with 180 firing arcs on the shadowcaster with its GREEN 3s and everything else just make it worse. The Shadowcaster is the next in line for bad decisions on large based ships with too much semi-turret bs. Nym is a utter mistake. (Miranda is... borderline overpowered. some say yes). Ghosts are utterly incredibly dumb for how they work (too many upgrades, too many danger zones, too much to remember, too much attack on too mobile a platform, makes for very abusive, point it at stuff and shoot play).

All of the abusive crap is large based or heavy-small based, turreted, wayyyy too many upgrade slots stuff. (And yes, in an ideal meta, I do think easy ordnance spam like gunboats might even be kind of abusive.)

Harpoons are just too damned good. Bin ‘em off. Or make a harpoon Torpedo for my t-65s

45 minutes ago, Favoritism Flight Games said:

I'm a big believer that it's harpoons, AND ONLY harpoons, that are keeping Imps relevant in the meta currently. Without harpoons Imps would have no tools to deal with the ultra-reliable defenses of rebels and Assaj. If harpoons get a big nerf, Imps evaporate.

Seriously, the only Imp list I EVER see without harpoons is TLT Aggressors.

I'm with OP- they're making arcs matter again, and the meta is the most diverse it's been in ages.

While certainly a factor, Harpoons are not the only thing keeping Imperials relevant. Mandalore was won by a Palp Aces with no Ordinance.

45 minutes ago, Favoritism Flight Games said:

I'm a big believer that it's harpoons, AND ONLY harpoons, that are keeping Imps relevant in the meta currently. Without harpoons Imps would have no tools to deal with the ultra-reliable defenses of rebels and Assaj. If harpoons get a big nerf, Imps evaporate.

Seriously, the only Imp list I EVER see without harpoons is TLT Aggressors.

I'm with OP- they're making arcs matter again, and the meta is the most diverse it's been in ages.

I've got a better solution: nerf the crap outta everything that we already know is too powerful:

Asajj, only assign a stress upon a hit with the mobile arc.

Wookkies, make reinforce interactable.

(No idea about Ghost yet)

Nym and Miranda are probably okay now... theyre just good. Consider removing Missiles and system from Nym. And making Miranda's ability: for all attacks you do this round, remove a die.

1 minute ago, SabineKey said:

While certainly a factor, Harpoons are not the only thing keeping Imperials relevant. Mandalore was won by a Palp Aces with no Ordinance.

While true... Its not certain if anyone else... can do the same.

I look at that list and say... eh. He must be good or something. I'm not using that.

4 minutes ago, Sekac said:

The thing is, cruise missiles were already doing a perfectly fine job of this before they very quickly went from the best missile to obsolete due to the release of harpoons.

As long as harpoons go un-nerfed swarms are never, ever coming back.

So yeah, it's great that harpoons make arcs matter, but single-handedly erasing an entire squad archetype is not worth the cost.

Harpoons are stupid and bad for the game.

Harpoons are not keeping swarms out of the meta. A FEW things are keeping swarms out of the meta:

Wookies (Reinforce utterly WRECKS 2 attack sips and multiple attacks)

Bombs (Sabine, Nym, Miranda, take your pick they all just annihilate swarms)

Harpoons are certainly also harming swarms, but if harpoons disappear, swarms are not coming back. There's WAY too much stacked up against swarms for them to ever come back. Pray for 2.0 if you want swarms to be competitive again.

1 minute ago, Blail Blerg said:

While true... Its not certain if anyone else... can do the same.

I look at that list and say... eh. He must be good or something. I'm not using that.

Still doesn't mean the Harpoons are the only thing keeping Imps afloat. Just because they are the obvious answer doesn't mean they are the only answer.