Recently I have been really wanting to play cracken but i just cant get right fit for a fleet. Thinking about his ability I thought a fun modification of it would read as "While a friendly ship is defending against a larger base ship treat the attack as obstructed." This would open up a lot more flexibility with fleet composition and i believe still be balanced in the grand scheme of fleets.

This just seemed like a cool idea to myself for a commander ability and wanted to share my thoughts

I really like this idea.

I still wish they would have went with another character for Cracken's ability. After all, Cracken was the head of Rebel Intelligence. I wish they would have made him as some sort of modified Intel Officer. I created a version awhile back, just haven't tried to use it yet. "When attacking a ship, choose a defense token. If your opponent spends it during this attack, you may exhaust one of your defenses to make your opponent discard the chosen token."

I'm not sure how this is different than what cracken does anyway. It's not really "hard" to stay at speed 3, what issue are you having with him?

It limits fleets as this doesn't work at all with pelta, nebulan doesn't want to go fast and hammerhead at speed 3 cannot turn for crap.

Cracken is a Commander for Mc30c and CR90 . I played him in CC with 2 Mc30c, 2 TRC90s and Dodonna's Pride. It takes a little time to practice, but the list was terryfying and wiped out an Imperial Fleet consisting of 2 VSD, 1 Interdictor, and 1 Arquittens in Game Round 3! And I had no casualties.

Nebulon B and Hammerheads are ships for Commander Leia Organa. Don't use them with Cracken.

8 hours ago, stev said:

It limits fleets as this doesn't work at all with pelta, nebulan doesn't want to go fast and hammerhead at speed 3 cannot turn for crap.

Exactly the point. The system is designed to force you to make hard choices. The last thing I want is more MSU love, they have enough.

Leave him as it is right now. As said before, he is great with corvettes, mc30, and! the transports become even more durable. Season it with yt2400-s.

What id love to see is cheaper upgrades for smaller ships for def retro, turbolaser. Limit them to small keyword or the opposite of quad turrets: going faster.

12 minutes ago, Darth Lupine said:

Exactly the point. The system is designed to force you to make hard choices. The last thing I want is more MSU love, they have enough.

Uhhh what? Have a look at the Regional data. Small ship MSU is on life support. Few people are taking 3+ small non-flotilla ships anymore and almost nobody is cracking the top 4 with it.

5 hours ago, Truthiness said:

Uhhh what? Have a look at the Regional data. Small ship MSU is on life support. Few people are taking 3+ small non-flotilla ships anymore and almost nobody is cracking the top 4 with it.

^this

8 hours ago, Truthiness said:

Uhhh what? Have a look at the Regional data. Small ship MSU is on life support. Few people are taking 3+ small non-flotilla ships anymore and almost nobody is cracking the top 4 with it.

Good....good.....let the hate flow through you......

Seriously. I don't look at data or stats. I simply look at what gets taken locally. I do agree, it's swinging away from MSU, thankfully.

17 hours ago, stev said:

hammerhead at speed 3 cannot turn for crap.

Are you not using inside turns? Hammerheads at speed 3 do inside turns pretty well, and especially so with a nav dial to add a click to the first or second joint.

3 hours ago, Darth Lupine said:

Good....good.....let the hate flow through you......

Seriously. I don't look at data or stats. I simply look at what gets taken locally. I do agree, it's swinging away from MSU, thankfully.

Sorry, not meant to be hate. Just pure data analytics.

I think rebels need more squadron help commander wise than they do MSU. I would love to see a rebel version of Sloane.

5 minutes ago, dominosfleet said:

I think rebels need more squadron help commander wise than they do MSU. I would love to see a rebel version of Sloane.

Uhhhhhhh, Rieekan, Dodonna, Garm. Combined with Toryn, Adar, every viable Rebel squadron.....

I'm not saying I would refuse a Rebel Sloane (Wedge I assume?) But with the ability of 2+3, I'm not sure it's needed.

Rebs could use a squad commander, but one that's anti-synergetic with Yavaris. Rebs could use a different squadron flavor.

8 minutes ago, Truthiness said:

Rebs could use a squad commander, but one that's anti-synergetic with Yavaris. Rebs could use a different squadron flavor.

Oo, i like and want this. You WOULD of course need another ship that wants to be a carrier of some sort in order to package them together. I'm not opposed to having one, of course.

8 minutes ago, geek19 said:

Oo, i like and want this. You WOULD of course need another ship that wants to be a carrier of some sort in order to package them together. I'm not opposed to having one, of course.

I was thinking of something like this:

"When a friendly squadron is performing an attack after moving at least distance one during its activation, you may rotate one die to any facing with a hit icon."

Powerful, yes (especially with X-Wings), but dependent on Intel and doesn't work with Yavaris. If testing proved to it to be too powerful, it could be adjusted to be either like IF (limited to a facing with a single hit) and/or limited to attacks against ships. Perhaps limited even further to just bomber attacks. There's a lot of flexibility there, with the goal of giving Rebs the ability to go without BCC or Yavaris.

1 minute ago, Truthiness said:

I was thinking of something like this:

"When a friendly squadron is performing an attack after moving at least distance one, you may rotate one die to any facing with a hit icon."

Powerful, yes (especially with X-Wings), but dependent on Intel and doesn't work with Yavaris. If testing proved to it to be too powerful, it could be adjusted to be either like IF (limited to a facing with a single hit) and/or limited to attacks against ships. Perhaps limited even further to just bomber attacks. There's a lot of flexibility there, with the goal of giving Rebs the ability to go without BCC or Yavaris.

So, the reason i don't spam 12 Y-wings with AF Flight Controllers is.....?

Especially Y-wings as bombers (Hit/Crit?) unless you DO do that IF thing. I'm not opposed to it though. Non-heavy's that you activate, probably, and i'd wonder about if you want it bomber only or fighter attack only.

All I gotta do is 1) Get ticket to Worlds 2) Win said Worlds 3) Choose to make this and not the Chewbacca boarding team.

Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

17 minutes ago, geek19 said:

So, the reason i don't spam 12 Y-wings with AF Flight Controllers is.....?

Because you could do Biggs, Jan, and 7 X-Wings instead

In seriousness, it would be all about finding that balance between the Intel dependency and the raw power. Look at it this way, though: is it really that much better than what Yavaris currently does with double dice bombers? It typically means 6 more damage in a turn with a token. It can be as high as 9 with B-Wings.

1 hour ago, Truthiness said:

Sorry, not meant to be hate. Just pure data analytics.

Lol, I know. I don't maths. It's all good. I happen to think a commander that granted an automatic obstruction to every small based ship would break the game. You'd see nothing but MSU.

26 minutes ago, Truthiness said:

Because you could do Biggs, Jan, and 7 X-Wings instead

In seriousness, it would be all about finding that balance between the Intel dependency and the raw power. Look at it this way, though: is it really that much better than what Yavaris currently does with double dice bombers? It typically means 6 more damage in a turn with a token. It can be as high as 9 with B-Wings.

Biggs, Jan, X, X, VCX, VCX, Y, Y, Y, Y is 134 exactly.

Why no I haven't been trying to necessarily shove this into several lists, what do you mean?

But small wouldn't obstruct small ships with how I imagined it.

18 hours ago, Darth Lupine said:

Exactly the point. The system is designed to force you to make hard choices. The last thing I want is more MSU love, they have enough.

this love extends to trc beimg nerfed and relay haunting those brittle ships wherever they are. as someone who played them forever I cant say it got any easier, and I dont see them often at tourney top tables. or, ahm, not at all.

9 hours ago, geek19 said:

Biggs, Jan, X, X, VCX, VCX, Y, Y, Y, Y is 134 exactly.

Why no I haven't been trying to necessarily shove this into several lists, what do you mean?

Math time! Assuming clear bombing runs with everything, that's 17 average damage, which is certainly nasty, especially when you consider that ball's average damage is 10 before re-rolls.

However, my Biggs Yavaris ball (Biggs, Jan, Wedge, YT, Dutch, B-Wing, Dagger, Ten), with a token, would average 17 before re-rolls. Add BCC in that, and that's likely to go up. With this commander, that damage remains 17. In the squadron fight with Yavaris, the Biggs Ball averages 21.5 damage. In a squadron fight, that becomes 22.75 with this commander before re-rolls.

So in reality, this commander is basically a wash with Yavaris/BCC. Still, considering you don't need BCC and it's perfect consistency, it probably needs some toning down.

Updated wording:

When a friendly squadron with the bomber keyword is attacking a ship, it may rotate one die to any facing with a hit icon. The squadron must have moved at least distance one during its activation prior to making its attack.

This removes the commander entirely from the squadron game and focuses the commander more narrowly on just bombing. I started thinking through some of the things it would affect otherwise, such as counter and Z-95s (holy crap would that have been nuts). By limiting it to the bomber keyword and make it just attacking ships, it tones down the ability to a fair degree. Thoughts on the update?