I think in almost all instance I would rather take a shot to cause damage than use a jamming beam. A jamming action, maybe... but it would remove my action too

Where were the jamming rules / beam spoiled?

5 minutes ago, TreebeardTheEnt said:

Where were the jamming rules / beam spoiled?

Unfortunately many are confusing jam action and jamming beam.

Here are the shortened rules for jam action:

And this is the text of the spoiled jamming beam card, which can be found in the master google doc that includes basically all information we know:

Jamming Beam (cannon) - Attack: If this attack hits, all [hit]/[crit] results inflict jam tokens instead of damage. [Firing arc, 3 Attack dice, Range 1-2

11 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

For what aspect?

For the new jam action functionality i assume. Where has it been spoiled?

Nobody doesn't use green tokens, so taking them off your opponent's ships is always going to make them die a little inside.

Finding a carrier who wouldn't rather have a different cannon is tricky but not impossible, even if you want them to be high initiative. V1.0 Serissu in the heavy scyk would be an example.

double post

You guys might recall that most lists are going to be more than just 3 ships these days. So, if one of your 4-7 ships sacrifices a Jam attack to remove a green token or two, you can come out ahead. It doesn't have to be on a high Init ship to work, but it has to be on a higher (or the same) Init as the rest of your list that is firing.

@thespaceinvader has some great examples of when you want to remove them.

Removing a Reinforce is a good thing if you do it before most of your list attacks.

You can also remove Target Locks, which can be important if you have something that needs them. What about a Tie Advanced that gets bonuses for keeping them? Or an ordnance carrier that wants to keep the TL to keep firing more ordnance?

There are not always amazing uses for it, but there are uses. If it's a cheap Cannon you can put on something that you might not have used the slot, then it's not so bad. Just wait for when there is X meta that is popular and uses some tokens. Jam could be the thing that knocks it away. We haven't even played yet, so lets see how things go.

For one, I'm thinking a cheap Scyk can carry a Jam Cannon and probably still be worth the points to just fire main guns if needed.

1 hour ago, ForceM said:

For the new jam action functionality i assume. Where has it been spoiled?

Those of us who read the rulebook at UKGE can confirm, it's one token to one ship at range 1, even if the quick reference rules hadn't been spoiled, and it's been pointed out in several places that round tokens are removed at the end of the round.

It was useless in 1.0 with 1-2 restriction you'd never take it over TB.

Seems like it's safe to ignore the 2.0 version unless it's free.

2 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

one token to one ship at range 1

And that immediately tells us why jamming beam can be worth it:

up to three tokens to one ship at range 1-2

I don‘t think it will be, but who knows?

Gotta laugh, 2 threads next to each other, one saying Rexler is amazing, the other saying a direct counter to his ability is trash

12 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

And that immediately tells us why jamming beam can be worth it:

up to three tokens to one ship at range 1-2

I don‘t think it will be, but who knows?

Jam tokens don't persist past the end of the round any more, so unless a ship has more than one token, more than one Jam token is probably wasted.

11 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

Jam tokens don't persist past the end of the round any more, so unless a ship has more than one token, more than one Jam token is probably wasted.

Well, have of the lists I want to try will be able to get more than one token, so I definitely won‘t be happy to encounter a jamming beam.

31 minutes ago, Max Teranous said:

Gotta laugh, 2 threads next to each other, one saying Rexler is amazing, the other saying a direct counter to his ability is trash

Laugh on.
Rexler is initiative 5. That means you need to equip your jamming beam on an initiative 6 ship and attack Rexler with it (a ship with 3 defence dice, free evade token and probably a focus token) and try to hit to... remove his tokens?
Tokens that he would probably spend anyway trying to avoid the jamming beam attack. And if you hit with it, it is worse than having attacked with a 3 dice primary, because you would deal some damage with it, unlike with jamming beam.

So you are sacrificing the attack of one of your highest initiative ship to achieve... what, exactly?

I would never try to use jamming beam against someone like Rexler. Instead, I would equip it on elite generics (initiative 3-4) to use against alpha strike lower initiative generics. Y-wings, TIE Bombers, Gunboats, or whatever else that need tokens or locks to deliver meaningful damage.

I think it would be especially effective against missile Starwings, that are built around the concept of dealing a strong alpha strike, then they struggle to get another shot when at closer range. Jam those gunboats and they have no teeth (especially now that HLC is crap).

But that is easy to say, hard to do, considering that jamming beam is range 1-2, and most missiles are range 2-3...

35 minutes ago, Max Teranous said:

Gotta laugh, 2 threads next to each other, one saying Rexler is amazing, the other saying a direct counter to his ability is trash

His “direct counter” is trash though. Jamming Beam is useless even if free because the tokens are so weak.

Also, good luck with that I6 cannon carrier that isn’t doing any damage.

Is there any point in using Jam in 2.0? Does the opportunity cost ever warrant it?

Jamming Beam Cannon - No damage what so ever. If you are low in the shooting order, they may not have tokens anyway.
Scrambler Missile - See above but you need a lock first which makes it even more niche
Jam action - Range 1 only. Uses your action (leaving you tokenless) to make someone else potentially tokenless, but only if it is a green token.

So you really want to roll up to someone at range 1, in your TIE Reaper and it's one agility, jam someone, only to have them clear said jam and then receive a token via coordinate / Garven / Kyle / Sheathipede or any other way Rebels have getting tokens back during or just before the Engagement phase. . What a great way to lose your own ship.

If it was range 0 - 2, I could see some corner case for it as you could arc dodge and still have an impact on the board state but at range 1. . you are almost always going to be getting shot at.

1 hour ago, thespaceinvader said:

Those of us who read the rulebook at UKGE can confirm, it's one token to one ship at range 1, even if the quick reference rules hadn't been spoiled, and it's been pointed out in several places that round tokens are removed at the end of the round.

Yeah that makes it completely worthless.

The action is still handy to have in some situations (if it’s white, and if you really mess up a crucial combo for ghr turn.

But the gun is just a complete waste of the paper it’s printed on.

What makes even to me is that you can attack green tokens with it only. I jamming should work against the systems if a ship. So against Reinforce and TL, maybe Calculate tokens. Focus and Evade tokens make no sense if you consider what jamming actually means.

Not affecting TL is also pretty big, since you can’t deny the opponent using ordnance, which would imho be a key reason to shoot a jamming beam insteat of another weapon!

9 hours ago, gadwag said:

Jamming beam has no real purpose - it does almost nothing that a regular attack can't do. Regular attacks will still strip tokens even if they miss, and will actually do damage if they hit.

The only thing making jam special is that it can remove target locks and reinforce tokens. Removing a target lock is only marginally useful - you're sacrificing your own attack to make the enemy attack without mods (and preventing them firing munitions) but they can still shoot, and thye took no damage! Removing a reinforce is only useful if the token would block more damage on subsequent attacks than the damage you lost by firing the jamming beam in the first place.

However, if jam tokens stayed after the end of the round, it would be very possible to dump a large pile of tokens on an enemy ship, preventing it from ever taking an action again. This might not often be an effective strategy, but it would certainly not be a fun strategy. Preventing your opponent from taking actions forever is very much against 2.0 design philosophy.

It doesn't do that anymore, do your reasearch.

3 hours ago, Cubanboy said:

Having a low PS ship Deny a high PS ship a focus action is amazingly strong.

You don't deny a high PS ship a focus action, you can remove one IF you hit, BY sacrificing your attack. Or, if you take an action, you can potentially waste your action, because the higher PS ship can just take a different action, making your move utterly useless.

2 hours ago, ForceM said:

For the new jam action functionality i assume. Where has it been spoiled?

In the TC interview with Alex Davy.

1 hour ago, heychadwick said:

You guys might recall that most lists are going to be more than just 3 ships these days. So, if one of your 4-7 ships sacrifices a Jam attack to remove a green token or two, you can come out ahead. It doesn't have to be on a high Init ship to work, but it has to be on a higher (or the same) Init as the rest of your list that is firing.

@thespaceinvader has some great examples of when you want to remove them.

Removing a Reinforce is a good thing if you do it before most of your list attacks.

You can also remove Target Locks, which can be important if you have something that needs them. What about a Tie Advanced that gets bonuses for keeping them? Or an ordnance carrier that wants to keep the TL to keep firing more ordnance?

There are not always amazing uses for it, but there are uses. If it's a cheap Cannon you can put on something that you might not have used the slot, then it's not so bad. Just wait for when there is X meta that is popular and uses some tokens. Jam could be the thing that knocks it away. We haven't even played yet, so lets see how things go.

For one, I'm thinking a cheap Scyk can carry a Jam Cannon and probably still be worth the points to just fire main guns if needed.

So. No ship that can equip jam will be ever in a list with 4 OTHER friendly ships, bar epic.

Defender (cannon)

Gunboat (cannon)

Reaper (action)

So what you are writing is just not possible. One of your 3 ships will sacrifice an attack, to MAYBE remove 1 token. That's really bad.

4 minutes ago, Commander Kaine said:

So. No ship that can equip jam will be ever in a list with 4 OTHER friendly ships, bar epic.

Defender (cannon)

Gunboat (cannon)

Reaper (action)

So what you are writing is just not possible. One of your 3 ships will sacrifice an attack, to MAYBE remove 1 token. That's really bad.

Curious that you've only listed Imperial ships.

I should have thought the obvious choice for Jamming Beam would be a Scyk. Cheap, disposable, works best when fielded in numbers.

Also, two of the three ships you listed could very well be flown with at least 3 others! It's hard to know for sure without points, but at the very, very least a Gunboat and six Academies could probably be a thing, right?

The other obvious use, I should have thought, for the Jamming Beam would be a 4x Gunboat ordnance list. The big question everyone has rightly pointed out is: why should I bother taking a Jamming Beam shot when a simple attack is almost always better?

Well the answer is whenever you can't make another attack. Disarm tokens. That's the big one. Gunboats with missiles, Xg-1 and Jamming Beam are going to be getting them whenever they SLAM or Reload. If you're careful to alternate by pairs, you can have two Gunboats reload or SLAM (or both, if you can also fit Advanced SLAM), jam an enemy ship to strip tokens, have your other two Gunboats fire missiles and then swap for the next turn.

This only works if Jamming Beam is cheap (which it will be, just look at it) and Gunboats have a missile slot by default, and not just through Os-1.

But until we know for sure they don't, it seems unreasonable to completely write off Jamming Beam.

Do we know if jam even works on TLs anymore? All I've heard is "green tokens" which is nice for reinforce and all but a TL smack would make it actually half drcent...if the action were range 1-2

Still, that's where you'd want jam: denying Ordnance. Infinetly better as an action because you don't want to hang your hat on having to shoot first, but it's something

Still too ridiculously matchup specific to bother with the Cannon, but it's something for ships with the action or Slicer crew

4 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

Do we know if jam even works on TLs anymore? All I've heard is "green tokens" which is nice for reinforce and all but a TL smack would make it actually half drcent...if the action were range 1-2

Still, that's where you'd want jam: denying Ordnance. Infinetly better as an action because you don't want to hang your hat on having to shoot first, but it's something

Still too ridiculously matchup specific to bother with the Cannon, but it's something for ships with the action or Slicer crew

I didn't track it closely enough to be able to confirm at UKGE, but maybe someone else did.

6 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

Do we know if jam even works on TLs anymore? All I've heard is "green tokens" which is nice for reinforce and all but a TL smack would make it actually half drcent...if the action were range 1-2

Still, that's where you'd want jam: denying Ordnance. Infinetly better as an action because you don't want to hang your hat on having to shoot first, but it's something

Still too ridiculously matchup specific to bother with the Cannon, but it's something for ships with the action or Slicer crew

We know it doesn't. It's not a green token.

1 hour ago, heychadwick said:

You guys might recall that most lists are going to be more than just 3 ships these days. .

Given how good some 'heavy hitters', like the YT-2400, Firespray or Defender seem to be, I'm pretty sure the 2-3 ship lists will be alive and well in 2.0. Swarms will probably also come back, but I'm seriously doubting most lists will be 4+ ships.

7 minutes ago, Commander Kaine said:

We know it doesn't. It's not a green token.

Oh yeah, pretty much 0 reason to take the cannon

The action is okay because ships don't always have a relevant repositioning actions or any repositioning actions at all

It's probably better than just a focus if you're concetrating fire on a high priority target. Stuff like the VCX or Decimator (poor Cheri) will hate your guts

43 minutes ago, Commander Kaine said:

Or, if you take an action, you can potentially waste your action, because the higher PS ship can just take a different action, making your move utterly useless.

That's very dishonest of you.

Denying a reinforce is huge. Denying a focus or evade to an expensive high agility ship is also huge. Way more important than "wasting" an action on a minor, cheap ship.