I keep having this feeling that Jamming beam is underrated and maybe we just haven't "figured it out" yet. But I'm not yet brave enough to try it out.

Has anyone had any success with this cannon? Does anyone even know how it really works? Please, share your thoughts.

As a matter of fact I just had some good experiences with it yesterday! Granted there's serious mitigating factors including my opponents both used deadeye Ordnance and I had the jamming Beam on Ten Numb+Bistan...

I feel like "Jamming" those ordinance carriers can help turn off those missile strikes. But I'm not totally sure how it works.

by the way...Bistan is dirrrty

Its not good... I mean if it reached to range 3 and took away reinforce tokens, then maybe it might be useful.

Ultimately though, for probably 80% of times I did that, a tractor beam would have done the same thing better by putting them on a rock, plus the side benefit of softening the target agility for follow up shots.

As long as Tractor Beam costs the same, rolls the same number of dice, and has full range there's little reason to take Jamming. JB might be preferable if you want to fly in an open space engagement (a legitimate play style that doesn't lend as well to TB) but the shorter range hurts the initial engagement as well as pursuit.

Only putting one jam token on target is just a single token strip/action cancel, and there are better ways to do that than giving up a 3 die attack (several pilots, crew, and stress control). If there was a good way to get more jam tokens on target or not give up your attack to do it then I'd be more excited about it.

It has always been tough to justify adding anything that uses up an attack but doesn't deliver damage.

Both the fact that negating 1 token in exchange for an attack AND its not super reliable/R3 capable makes jamming beam pathetic as crud.

Tractors reposition even if there isnt a rock around can royally screw up someone's maneuver, not to mention soften its agility up for future attacks. There is literally no reason to use jamming over tractors.

Jamming beams should have been R3 and a 4die attack. That way its a long-range and super reliable effect, but does no damage or reposition. Also the Scramblers should have been 3 tokens to target ship, not R1 aoe 1 token.

The Jam rule itself is fine and i actually like it but both of the current ways to assign said jam token are so bad its laughable.

Every other secondary weapon in the game is probably better.

1 hour ago, Malabor said:

I keep having this feeling that Jamming beam is underrated and maybe we just haven't "figured it out" yet. But I'm not yet brave enough to try it out.

Has anyone had any success with this cannon? Does anyone even know how it really works? Please, share your thoughts.

We've figured out it does no damage

That's the long and short of that discussion

(And yes, the basically never used tractor beams does no damage either but it can potentially deny or enable attacks which jamming has no control over outside the very specific case of ordnance provided there's only 1 token on the enemy)

It and scramblers just needed to do a single point if damage to even consider being played

8 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

It and scramblers just needed to do a single point if damage to even consider being played

Easy, just jam someone who is harpooned and roll at least one crit. Damage done!

1 hour ago, DagobahDave said:

It has always been tough to justify adding anything that uses up an attack but doesn't deliver damage.

Maybe....TIE/D Vessery with Opportunist? Getting pricey, though, as you'll definitely want the Mk II engines to deal with the stress. So you're basically out 6 pts for that attack (JB + Opportunist + Mk 2)

I will take a Nu with Jamming Beam to a small tournament on Sunday. Saves me 2pt compared to Harpoons.

I‘ve found that the main use I get out of Harpoons is a credible threat. But most games I shoot just one, sometimes two but never more. Some games (like today) not a single one. It draws aggro and tanks shots, which is great.

But I hope now for the oppisite effect: that the jamming beam after a slam gets underestimated! It will likely be the last shot of the round. Shooting at a tokenless defender will have a lasting effect. And I bank on the thought that the attack doesnt deal damage anyway, so tokens will be more readily spent on previous shots. Hopefully

The really big issue (other than range 1-2) is the opponent chooses the token. So harpoon carriers like Nus with LRS who focus for their action just lose the focus and still fire harpoons at you. Oh, you landed range of a ghost primary and it has a focus and evade, jam him but he chooses to lose evade and now still has 4 dice and a focus.

Jamming beam would have been a monster like 5 waves ago (could have used it in the deadeye torpboat meta) when ships were still single token ships for the most part. But now, everyone has double/triple tokens it seems or they are just so easy to hit like 1 agility ships that if you get a shot you should just take it to get damage.

The only use I see it on are TIE /D defenders over tractor beam right now as it would be way more useful in Kanan/Fenn matches, Dash/Poe matches, and deadeye Harpoon boats.

12 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

I will take a Nu with Jamming Beam to a small tournament on Sunday. Saves me 2pt compared to Harpoons.

I‘ve found that the main use I get out of Harpoons is a credible threat. But most games I shoot just one, sometimes two but never more. Some games (like today) not a single one. It draws aggro and tanks shots, which is great.

But I hope now for the oppisite effect: that the jamming beam after a slam gets underestimated! It will likely be the last shot of the round. Shooting at a tokenless defender will have a lasting effect. And I bank on the thought that the attack doesnt deal damage anyway, so tokens will be more readily spent on previous shots. Hopefully

What about Scrambler Missiles? Same net cost, presuming you don't take the title. Might be a more useful alpha strike - if you smack 3 or 4 ships in a group with them, all splashing jam tokens onto their neighbors...that could shut down the enemy for quite a number of turns. (AFAIK - jam tokens stack, yes? And each qualifying action only removes a single token? So putting 3 or 4 jam tokens on a target seems...effective.)

I've used it a number of times with TIE/D Defenders. It does what I need it to do, which is strip off tokens so the primary attack doesn't have to fight through them or it trashes a target lock (so no harpoon return fire). Having the Jam token be persistent also makes it useful on a generic Defender where the tractor beam -1 agility is less useful. I've set up several shots where my Glaive squad pilot jammed my opponents tokenless ace allowing my ace to get a clean shot the next round.

I never bothered to use it. Unless if a future upgrade comes along that allows you to do another attack if the first attack causes no damage then I can't see a reason to use it.

7 minutes ago, xanderf said:

What about Scrambler Missiles? Same net cost, presuming you don't take the title. Might be a more useful alpha strike - if you smack 3 or 4 ships in a group with them, all splashing jam tokens onto their neighbors...that could shut down the enemy for quite a number of turns. (AFAIK - jam tokens stack, yes? And each qualifying action only removes a single token? So putting 3 or 4 jam tokens on a target seems...effective.)

I have only 1 Nu, and would bring only one jamming/scrambler. So no stacks.

The missile is still an option though, because it clearly synergizes with LRS. But I expect to only take focus anyway, and just TL if far away enough to be safe. So I think I‘ll try the cannon to have a short range threat in the list

18 minutes ago, wurms said:

The only use I see it on are TIE /D defenders over tractor beam right now as it would be way more useful in Kanan/Fenn matches, Dash/Poe matches, and deadeye Harpoon boats.

I'm running Vessery TIE/D right now with two HLC GUNBOATS w/ linked battery. I recently switched from Ion Cannon to Tractor Beam. Now I'm considering the Jamming Beam to steal a focus from Poe or Kannon, steal a lock from a Harpoon carrier, etc. I'll test it tonight and see how it goes.

13 minutes ago, xanderf said:

What about Scrambler Missiles? Same net cost, presuming you don't take the title. Might be a more useful alpha strike - if you smack 3 or 4 ships in a group with them, all splashing jam tokens onto their neighbors...that could shut down the enemy for quite a number of turns. (AFAIK - jam tokens stack, yes? And each qualifying action only removes a single token? So putting 3 or 4 jam tokens on a target seems...effective.)

I used it successfully once in epic. I used rebel Nym to throw a scrambler missile in the enemy formation, stopping the alpha strike. A single one of those was enough, so I was quite happy with the result.

I have only tried it in one game so far on a Nu Squadron Pilot with XG-1 and Flechette cannon as well. Most of the time I just used the Flechette cannon but I did use the Jamming Beam once or twice to strip target locks from Y-Wings, preventing them from firing their Synced Turrets. The Y-Wings were stress-ionized as well so couldn't re-aquire the target lock in the next turn.

I think it's a useful alternative to the Tractor beam if you have spare points and cannon slots. It's main use as far as I can see is to add jam tokens to a target and then to leave them defenceless for a more devastating attack the next turn, so it requires a bit more planning than some people are used to.

I remember when Tractor Beam came out and everyone was pretty much "meh" about it, and then the Shadowcaster came out and could Tractor Beam ships as part of it's ability. We'll probably get a pilot or ship that uses the Jam effect without you having to equip a Jamming Beam upgrade.

It sucks range 1-2 really kills it as an option when TB exists, tried it a few times always wished I had something else equipped.

Jamming Beam sucks. There are so many ways it could have been viable, but as it is I wouldn't put it on anything. Most ships would rather get hit by TB than by a regular attack, while the ones most vulnerable to it probably don't care much either. It's a garbage upgrade, and that makes me sad. I so wanted an Ion/Jamming/Concussion Gunboat to be viable, but its a terrible build.

Tried jamming beam in a tournament. Oh wow is it bad!

Not just against the Wookies who never used focus, or who had Rey with a stack anyway and cleared it like nothing.

The fact that it deals no damage and removes no reinforce makes it worthless, true.

But even if. Even if it did deal a damage, the card would still be pretty worthless to the more powerful control elements like stress or ion.

And my personal alternative are 4-5 dice of damage. Which is so much better for just 1-2 more points that it is not even a question. But now I made the experience to confirm what we all thought anyway. And yep: jamming beam is horribly bad.