ISB Slicer - Question

By Favoritism Flight Games, in X-Wing

3 minutes ago, LagJanson said:

No, because... it has to be another ship at range 1 that is not jammed...

Not another ship, any ship at range 1. Your initial Jam removes the first token which causes the Jam token to be spent, then the two copies of ISB Slicer trigger at the same time so you can choose the order. You re-Jam the same ship since it no longer has a Jam token, which spends that Jam and removes the second token. Then the third Jam kicks in.

28 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

ISBs are actually slightly, legitimately concerning for game balance

If you get the attention of the ISB, you should always be concerned.

Forgot to mention

Vermeil doesn't need Jam to work like whatshisface ps 4. He just needs no tokens on his targets

If his targets don't have tokens,bthe reaper can evade

EDIT: now this might sound superbly silly, but...

I think Raspberry Vermeil could be a Palp ace

Edited by ficklegreendice
8 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

Forgot to mention

Vermeil doesn't need Jam to work like whatshisface ps 4. He just needs no tokens on his targets

If his targets don't have tokens,bthe reaper can evade

EDIT: now this might sound superbly silly, but...

I think Raspberry Vermeil could be a Palp ace

I mean there's nothing stopping you from putting Krennic on Vermeil, Optimize himself, ISB Officer, LWF and EPT of choice. Jam, make sure they're Jammed (or spread Jams out), and you get free attack mods with a blank using the Optimized condition and Vermeil's ability to change focus or another blank to hit.

Edited by RStan

I think I'd rather have Kallus to not crash and burn super fast

After all, we're still looking at a Bwing (well, halfway between a t-70 and a jm5k with lwf) at the end of the day

A super manueverable, fully modded bwing that denies your opponents all token mods (which therefore also denies Ordnance), but still a Bwing

Edited by ficklegreendice

One thing which strikes me as interesting is the use on a Gozanti with Broadcast Array. Double-stress one ship, and stick a Jam token on either it or another ship at R1 of it.

1 hour ago, DarkArk said:

This is a massive hard counter to those tech upgrades that let you hold onto actions. 26 points for one with ISB, courier, LWF. I think it will be a solid ship. Throw Krennic on for 31 if you feel like it.

And it also counters LRS and makes missile alpha strikes much harder to execute.

1 hour ago, defkhan1 said:

So if you slap two of these bad boys on a Reaper and Jam a ship with two tokens, does it immediately lose both tokens AND get assigned a lingering Jam token?

Eh...no? At least, based on the jam action from the cannon/missile.

You remove one of those tokens to remove one jam token. So with two tokens to remove, you could remove both jam tokens.

That said, given the 1:1, I don't know why everyone is so concerned with getting the ISB agent to a high-PS. I mean...isn't PS1 just as good? Slap a ship with a pair of jam tokens before it can even move* - eat a bite out of any possible Adv Sensors actions it might want to take, and effectively deny it actions...forever. I mean the tokens stick around indefinitely, until the ship does one of the related actions to no effect. So...the ship can either choose to "waste" a turn's worth of actions or do a non-jammed action, which just leaves the tokens hanging around their neck until a later turn. I dunno, but I really like early-in-the-turn-jamming, myself....

* Granted, ISB slicers say the second token cannot be on a jammed ship, so sure, it has to have some other token first to double-jam. Still, even a single jam token hanging around - on two different ships, before their action - feels effective and controlling their decisions. Who wants to choose to waste actions? But if you don't...the jam sticks around turn after turn...

Edited by xanderf
1 hour ago, xanderf said:

Eh...no? At least, based on the jam action from the cannon/missile.

You remove one of those tokens to remove one jam token. So with two tokens to remove, you could remove both jam tokens.

That said, given the 1:1, I don't know why everyone is so concerned with getting the ISB agent to a high-PS. I mean...isn't PS1 just as good? Slap a ship with a pair of jam tokens before it can even move* - eat a bite out of any possible Adv Sensors actions it might want to take, and effectively deny it actions...forever. I mean the tokens stick around indefinitely, until the ship does one of the related actions to no effect. So...the ship can either choose to "waste" a turn's worth of actions or do a non-jammed action, which just leaves the tokens hanging around their neck until a later turn. I dunno, but I really like early-in-the-turn-jamming, myself....

* Granted, ISB slicers say the second token cannot be on a jammed ship, so sure, it has to have some other token first to double-jam. Still, even a single jam token hanging around - on two different ships, before their action - feels effective and controlling their decisions. Who wants to choose to waste actions? But if you don't...the jam sticks around turn after turn...

Eh. If a ship can get two tokens in a round, giving it one Jam before it moves just means it gets one less token this round. Getting it Jammed after it moves means it doesn't have tokens for comabt AND it has to get two next round to get back to snuff.

ISB is going to be so annoying to tkoen ships, but... you know, like half of ships in the top tier game DGAF about focus/evade/TL.

It's mean to TL alphas though, which I'm not remotely going to complain about.

Edited by thespaceinvader
3 hours ago, Incard said:

Reaper Madness?

sorry I missed this,

no Raspberry Vermeil is not Reaper Madness

THIS is reaper madness

"Raspberry Vermeil" (26)
*VI (1)
*ISB Slicers (2)
*Kallus (2)

*Lightweight Frame (2)
*Ailereons (0)
[33]

Feroph (24)
*DTF (1)
*Captive (3)
*Krennic (5)
*Lightweight Frame (2)

*Ailereons (0)
[35)

Scarrif Base Pilot (22)
*Palp (8)

*Lightweight Frame (2)

*Ailereons (0)
[32]

unfortunately there is no PS 0 nor 2 to go with Feroph's four, so we can only approximate "Reaper Madness"

(P.S: goddamn these pilot name are difficult to take seriously. The **** is a "Feroph"!?)

4 hours ago, ficklegreendice said:

I know everyone's excited for palp, but this'll probably be the sleeper hit

This will not be a sleeper hit, it's the hardest of counters to Poe and Advanced optics in general because even if your lower PS, it still strips and stops this turns focus and the ability to proc multiple jams on different ships is really solid. Basically trading 1 of your action for 2 enemy actions. Unless it has some pretty heavy limitations on range or an RNG element, this hurts any ships that's plan is to keep tokens...poor Omega Leader.

yes, but as people brought up some of the meta boogeymen don't care as much

wookies and vcx fenn don't care at all

the Vermeil build is fine about this because he still gets his ability with or without Jam and then the Reaper can evade, but the ISBs become pretty dead weight in these specific match-ups

other ships that care less about jam still care a bit, though. You can't stop offensive mods, but defensive non-token mods are a bit harder to find and they're far more effective if stacked with token mods (i.e Palpatine is fine. Palpatine + focus + evade? yeah that attack isn't getting through). Also miranda can't toss harpoons at you

Edited by ficklegreendice

Pilot skill Will Be important to see if your Buzz sticks...... Top PS repaer is 8.. with VI....

Edited by D34d guru

So you're beating all vcxs and asajj and dash, tying with inquistor, Miranda and Rey

For the guys who out ps you, you got nym, Cheri and rau (kinda sol there) and a bunch of fo guys like kylo and qd

Kylo and Qd both pack optics, and QD also packs fcs. You don't need to out ps them to double-jam

If you run into nym or Cheri, odds are you can doublejam their partner (Miranda and Qd, respectively). Ailerons also make it possible to avoid bombs with proper positioning

Only truly unjammable lists I can think of are vcxfenn and wookie spam

Should also point out that our Slicer buddies are 2 points. Not exactly breaking the bank there.

the only two real big concerns here are 1.) stress (Jam is an action) and 2.) the jam action itself

We're assuming it's "choose an enemy ship at range 1-2. Assign a JAM token to that ship). for all we know, it could actually be terrible. Could be a die roll, could be range 1 only. Anyone's guess

You got an Aileron + 3 forward for an effective 5 forward (plus aileron banks and white 3-banks due to title), though. If Jam is range 1-2, it shouldn't be impossible to get higher PS ships in range before they fire

Edited by ficklegreendice

Really wish Jam token was:

"When a ship has both a Jam token and a green or blue modifier token, remove the Jam token. Then that ship chooses to remove 1 of it's green or blue modifier tokens.

A ship is considered JAMMED if it has a remaining Jam token assigned to it."


Then the FAQ:

"Modifier Tokens Clarification"
Green Modifier tokens are all green tokens that modify dice results such as Focus, Evade and Reinforce tokens. Blue modifier tokens are blue tokens that modify dice such as Blue Target Lock tokens and Cloak Tokens. |


Also, whilst i'm "wishing" ...

Jamming Beam: 1 point
Attack Dice: 3
Range 1 - 2
Action: Choose an enemy ship within your primary firing arc and perform this attack. If this attack hits, assign all enemy ships within your firing arc 1 Jam token. Then cancel all dice results.

I think Jamming Beam may of seen some use this way.

  • Darth Vader - Adaptability, TIE/x1, Advanced Targeting Computer, Engine Upgrade (34)
  • Major Vermeil - Adrenaline Rush, ISB Slicer, Director Krennic, Advanced Ailerons, Lightweight Frame (36)
  • Scarif Base Pilot - Emperor Palpatine, Advanced Ailerons (30)

Palp scuttles off while Vader and Vermeil run together. Vader is optimised to shed shields and passes TL to Vermeil, who can now TL/ability mod his dice while keeping his actions free to double-Jam enemy ships.

You could have Vermeil jam the Wookies, and then he and Feroph get their mods even though the Wookies still have reinforce

I was just thinking and realized that FFG seems to really hate token mods all of a sudden. examples: hot-cop, Fenn, Jam beam, scramble missiles, now jam action, and worse, ISB slicers. you might as well just remove focus and TL from action bars. The only way around this that I can see is non-formation swarms / heavy swarms, you can only jam one of them.

maybe it's not that bad, maybe it is only range 1, maybe it is RNG. But otherwise, this is really stink'n OP. And I am not typically a whiner, I like the state the game is in (for the most part).

It does not say "another" friendly ship, and a ship is range 1 to itself.

Allowing Jam to remove Reinforce would further condemn Huge ships to a swift death. ☠️

?

2 minutes ago, ABXY said:

Allowing Jam to remove Reinforce would further condemn Huge ships to a swift death. ☠️

?

Change the huge ship rules to say that they cannot be assigned tokens or conditions other than blue and red TLs, and reinforce tokens.

Easy peasy.

(I had a very brief moment of hilarious hope there where I wondered if you could make Optimised Protoype Raiders or Gozantis, but you can't for several reasons XD)

well someone brought up the fact that Huge Ships can't get stressed

so now they also can't get jammed. easy

where the **** did the ninja emoji go

Edited by ficklegreendice
4 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

Easy peasy.

Fair enough.

46 minutes ago, GLEXOR said:

I was just thinking and realized that FFG seems to really hate token mods all of a sudden. examples: hot-cop, Fenn, Jam beam, scramble missiles, now jam action, and worse, ISB slicers. you might as well just remove focus and TL from action bars. The only way around this that I can see is non-formation swarms / heavy swarms, you can only jam one of them.

maybe it's not that bad, maybe it is only range 1, maybe it is RNG. But otherwise, this is really stink'n OP. And I am not typically a whiner, I like the state the game is in (for the most part).

FFG design cycle is slow. Remember when everybody was complaining about hyper-modified dice a while back? Well now we get this as a response.

I'm seeing signs that we're being pushed back towards larger fleets and more generics, too. The generics have been quite aggressively costed in the last wave or two while guys like Kylo get given a heavy points premium.

Whatever list rises to the top using this expansion must be called Blue Oyster Cult. Bonus points for anyone that mods their Reaper to look like a cowbell.