Just now, Skandranon said:Seen people post that Valen Rudor is confirmed as a defender pilot, I missed it so wondering if true, do we know his ability and initiative?
Probably the same as the TIE fighter.
IN 3
“After a friendly ship at range 0-1 defends (after damage is resolved, if any), you may perform an action”
It was in the teaser video. The base of the Defender had the name Valen Rudor.
so even better than v1, thats amazing
I think people need to keep in mind that early looks at price-point put a non-upgraded Defender at about 70 points.
With upgrades, you'll be able to get 2 Defenders into 200 points, and likely not much else.
They're strong ships, but I'm not sure they're strong enough to only run 2.
4 minutes ago, bydand said:I think people need to keep in mind that early looks at price-point put a non-upgraded Defender at about 70 points.
With upgrades, you'll be able to get 2 Defenders into 200 points, and likely not much else.
They're strong ships, but I'm not sure they're strong enough to only run 2.
Depends
- If they have a Double tap configuration (even if it replaces Full throttle)
- If they have a system slot
- If they have imperial only mod slots that help them out
They could be worth it.
Will we have those things? I strongly doubt it.
38 minutes ago, Commander Kaine said:Depends
- If they have a Double tap configuration (even if it replaces Full throttle)
- If they have a system slot
- If they have imperial only mod slots that help them out
They could be worth it.
Will we have those things? I strongly doubt it.
With cards like veteran tail gunner/ veteran gunner giving a primary shot and a turret or back arc shot, I don't see why the defender should not have a bonus attack. It should just cost a fair bit...
Vessery aint coming back cause he is no longer canon like Ysard. Not the worse thing in the world. He will always go down as the best 1e Defender pilot. R.I.P. Vessery
Maarek Steele is probably the other Defender or else Vult Skerris from rebels show. My bet is on Vult.
I think we will be able to get two named defenders and a naked academy or maybe a cheap 30pts or less support ship.
Im thinking something like
Valen Rudor ~78pts + Predator = ~82pts
Rexlar Brath ~84pts + Juke = ~88pts
~30pts leftover?
Edited by wurmsHere's hoping that they don't save the Elite config for the re-release of the expansion and we have access to it in the conversion kit.
Also, they are going to need FCS to be able to output any appreciable amount of damage.
There is only one question regarding the Defender...
Will they rerelease it with Vader as its pilot?
Then it will be truly feared, and cost the same as Han with Luke!
Speaking of whom... Luke (gunner) sucks vs defenders, doesn't he, compared to 1.0 Han and Luke against similar defenders? No second shot is going to make it hard to get much damage down, irrespective of arc swings.
2 hours ago, HolySorcerer said:Also, they are going to need FCS to be able to output any appreciable amount of damage.
Never seemed to need it in 1.0, and they were shooting at targets a lot harder to bring down than anything in 2.0 will be.
5 minutes ago, DR4CO said:Never seemed to need it in 1.0, and they were shooting at targets a lot harder to bring down than anything in 2.0 will be.
Vessery had free locks, Ryad had PTL, TIE/D had a double tap, and there were 3 generics in a list.
None of those things exist now as far as we know.
Edited by Commander KaineBut damage is sooo much easier to get through now. Unless you have a Defender....
30 minutes ago, Commander Kaine said:Vessery had free locks, Ryad had PTL, TIE/D had a double tap, and there were 3 generics in a list.
None of those things exist now as far as we know.
Juke Defenders have had major success before, and that does still exist. As do Predator, Crack Shot and Lone Wolf, albeit all in reduced forms (though it must be said, a ship with white K-turns & two options to reposition probably stands a better chance of leveraging bullseye upgrades than most).
But a standard 3-dice gun on a platform that can outlast most anything else might be all we need. We don't have to worry about hitting token-stacked Autothruster Inquisitors or Soontirs, or killing Threepio Miris or PtL Corrans escorted by Lowie, or Timewalk Asajjs. 2.0 is going to be a much less defensive environment; the current 1.0 requirements to have all the mods, all the time isn't going to apply.
Edited by DR4CO16 hours ago, Do I need a Username said:New content >>>>>>>> old content in the eyes of FFG (and justifiably so from a marketing perspective). I don't expect Marek or Vessery to come back, and I don't mind at all.
Stele exists in 2.0 as a TIE advanced pilot - but then the TIE/x1 suffers from being relatively rarely seen in any media in hands other than Darth Vader's, so it's not especially surprising.
It wouldn't surprise me if the higher PS defender ace is Vult Skerris, though, since he does fly it in Rebels (twice, and actually gets some 'good guy kills' before being taken down).
Edited by Magnus Grendel15 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:Stele exists in 2.0 as a TIE advanced pilot - but then the TIE/x1 suffers from being relatively rarely seen in any media in hands other than Darth Vader's, so it's not especially surprising.
It wouldn't surprise me if the higher PS defender ace is Vult Skerris, though, since he does fly it in Rebels (twice, and actually gets some 'good guy kills' before being taken down).
Maybe Vult Skerris gets Vessery's ability?
Waifu got the same treatment too
1 hour ago, Commander Kaine said:Maybe Vult Skerris gets Vessery's ability?
Waifu got the same treatment too
Wouldn't surprise me; there's nothing wrong with vessery's pilot ability, I'd just be surprised not to see Skerris pop up as a pilot, given that we see quite a lot of him in rebels and his first time in the defender's cockpit was way back in Secret Cargo in season 3 of rebels, in March last year.
I admit his more recent appearances (October/November last year) might be too recent given the turn-around times of locking down the content if it's being printed en masse for mid this year.
21 hours ago, Squark said:No, boost and evade make sense. The ship was very agile in all of the old source material; The red 1 and 2 turns are due to the ship's incredible speed, not its bulk.
Yes, but not as maneuverable as a TIE Interceptor (or A-wing), and that is just the fluff side of it. For gameplay part we need ships that act (fly) differently from each other, if the TIE defender is just a beefy TIE Interceptor then the game suffers.
Edited by Sciencius14 hours ago, wurms said:Vessery aint coming back cause he is no longer canon like Ysard. Not the worse thing in the world. He will always go down as the best 1e Defender pilot. R.I.P. Vessery
Neither are Rexler Brath, Countess Ryad or Maarek Steele, they still made it in.
Gavin Darklighter wasn't even in 1e, is non-canon and still makes an appearance in 2e.
They're only getting rid of non-canon characters who have a reasonable replacement. Granted, Vult Skerris is an obvious replacement for one of the now non-canon Defender pilots, but I'm still really surprised it wasn't Rexler who got replaced. He was the highest PS in 1e, which is probably where Vult should sit, he was not only non-canon but also never actually appeared anywhere.
He was just a name attached to a quote about the TIE Defender in a reference book. He also basically never saw table time because he was too expensive for an ability that was too hard to trigger. Vessery was an actual character, appearing in Isard's Revenge, and was a really popular 1e pilot.
My guess at the moment is just that FFG preferred Onyx Squadron and Onyx Leader as a subtitle to Interloper Squadron and Interloper Leader (Vessery's squadron and callsign respectively). Interloper Leader is a bit of a mouthful, I guess.
Another interesting thing to note is that Vessery's card art just happens to have him flying near a sun. The first time we see Vult Skerris flying a Defender in Rebels, it's while he's chasing Y-Wings through a nebula and extremely close to a proto-star. It might just be that FFG realised Vessery's card art was super fitting for Skerris, and so gave him the chop for that reason alone.
Random tangent: I always thought it was odd that Vessery didn't get his first name in 1e and had Col. instead. I can't think of another instance where a character's full name was known, but they used a rank instead.
59 minutes ago, Sciencius said:Yes, but not as maneuverable as a TIE Interceptor (or A-wing), and that is just the fluff side of it. For gameplay part we need ships that act (fly) differently from each other, if the TIE defender is just a beefy TIE Interceptor then the game suffers.
I mean, the Defender lacks white 1 and 2 turns, as well as the Interceptor's linked actions. I think it's fairly different.
Ahh, I can already see a glorious TIE/D ace + double GUNBOATS list wreaking havoc across the galaxy
heck if you want canon-only defenders you have a SUPER small roster for pilots since canonically its only briefly shown up in Rebels.
Vessery was probably removed because of the immense free mods he gets and that mentality has been cracked down on hard. Unless youre spending Force or only modding 1 die, free mods are rare.
21 hours ago, Hobojebus said:One of my most effective lists is two defenders and a tie shuttle buffing them, only taking two won't really hit me too hard.
Except now you wont have points for the shuttle.
2 hours ago, RedHotDice said:Except now you wont have points for the shuttle.
This is exactly my point.
The way it looks now, you can run two well equipped aces with nothing else, or perhaps 1 decked Defender, a lean pocket ace, and lean support.
It'll be a ship you build around, not extras in a list. They want it to be the premiere, fancypants, superiority fighter. And there aren't many of them because they're expensive AF.
59 minutes ago, bydand said:This is exactly my point.
The way it looks now, you can run two well equipped aces with nothing else, or perhaps 1 decked Defender, a lean pocket ace, and lean support.
It'll be a ship you build around, not extras in a list. They want it to be the premiere, fancypants, superiority fighter. And there aren't many of them because they're expensive AF.
I think the official cost (in the fluff) of one defender was about the same as 4-5 standard TIE fighters. There were 12 TIE fighters to an entire squad. They were prohibitively expensive in the story.
1 hour ago, bydand said:This is exactly my point.
The way it looks now, you can run two well equipped aces with nothing else, or perhaps 1 decked Defender, a lean pocket ace, and lean support.
It'll be a ship you build around, not extras in a list. They want it to be the premiere, fancypants, superiority fighter. And there aren't many of them because they're expensive AF.
So basically Imperial brobots, except no bro-abilty.
and thats my problem.. If I wanted to run 2 heavy well equiped aces with all the fixings - I would look to Brobots and perhaps twin-firesprays.
If I want to run triple heavy jousters where do I go?
5 minutes ago, RedHotDice said:So basically Imperial brobots, except no bro-abilty.
and thats my problem.. If I wanted to run 2 heavy well equiped aces with all the fixings - I would look to Brobots and perhaps twin-firesprays.
If I want to run triple heavy jousters where do I go?
I mean... Probably
But of course... that would be treason.