Since one can only jam within range 1 and the token will go away at the end of the round, what is the point of it?

It is totally a useless action to take. Why would anyone take it, if you can do the focus action instead.

Someone smarter than me, please enlighten me.

Its still a hard counter to tokenstackers.
Jamming Beam is hot garbage though.

Fair point, fair point.

I guess low PS ships should jam? Ruin a higher PS ships day?

Or the ISB slicers would work to keep the jam around.

I think range 1-2 jam would be a little too strong since you assign the token. No chance for it to miss if you have range, hence it is only range 1.

But yeah jamming bean would either have to count on slicers, or be used by a high PS ship.

But if you are shooting at a high PS, you probably want to do damage instead.

So yeah lol

Jam action range 1-2 wouldnt be that bad since jams dont stick around.

If they stuck around by default it'd be pretty gnarly. Since it has to be a bubble to keep around you can simply fly away rather than be forced to burn 2-3 actions to get rid of them.

Which i think would have been a better way to solve that problem: "At the beginning of the End Phase, if you are beyond R1-2 of any enemy ships, remove all Jam tokens" rather than what they went with.

I suspect there will be a very strong reason to do a Jam list, but it would be difficult to pull off.

I can't prove this with math, but it seems to me that Jam becomes substantially more valuable as your opponent's ship count shrinks. Jamming an expensive ace like Soontir is much more valuable than jamming a Red Sq. Vet., especially if you're running a relatively lean support ship. You could also consider the value if you strip a focus or evade from Howlrunner - if you take her off the board early because she can't modify green dice, you've removed a linchpin force multiplier in the other squad.

If your opponent brings five cartel marauders, then you're right that it's probably inferior to the other actions.

Do we really need a second topic on this?

i mean, I suppose the other one is “technically” just about the cannon, but it’s really been about jamming in general.

I'll hold my judgement 'til that Rules Reference drops.

The jam action will be okay, but nothing to base a list around. The Jamming Beam is useless trash unless it costs negative points.

1 minute ago, HolySorcerer said:

The jam action will be okay, but nothing to base a list around. The Jamming Beam is useless trash unless it costs negative points.

I can see the utility of having Jam sometimes, but not relying on it as a crutch. I'm inclined to agree that I can't think of a reason for the beam, though, even if it were free.

I'm hoping that the beam has a value that I just don't see yet.

1 minute ago, PaulRuddSays said:

I can see the utility of having Jam sometimes, but not relying on it as a crutch. I'm inclined to agree that I can't think of a reason for the beam, though, even if it were free.

I'm hoping that the beam has a value that I just don't see yet.

The only reason to take one would be if they are the only zero cost cannon and you can't afford tractor or ion. If that was the case then you might see them on OS-1 or Lambda's just because why not equip a free upgrade. If they cost even a single point though you will never see them unless some killer Imperial only mod does something amazing with them.

Think of Jam as a bonus attack that cant do damage but will always strip a token. Compare to a 2 dice attack with focus on a low initiative ship against most high value targets and you're probably going to be achieving more with Jam than the 2 dice attack.

5 minutes ago, PaulRuddSays said:

I can't prove this with math, but it seems to me that Jam becomes substantially more valuable as your opponent's ship count shrinks. Jamming an expensive ace like Soontir is much more valuable than jamming a Red Sq. Vet., especially if you're running a relatively lean support ship. You could also consider the value if you strip a focus or evade from Howlrunner - if you take her off the board early because she can't modify green dice, you've removed a linchpin force multiplier in the other squad.

If your opponent brings five cartel marauders, then you're right that it's probably inferior to the other actions.

You don't get it.

You shoot at Howlrunner, let's say at Range 2. One of your ships, at least 25% of your list, because there just isn't cheaper cannon carriers (maybe the scyk, but I don't think even those are worth it) , sacrifices an attack to remove 1 focus or evade token.

To achieve this, you might need to spend mods on your attack, or it might not hit at all.

If it hits, but the defender spent the tokens already, it does nothing.

Then you just have a Howlrunner with the same 3 health, and 3 green dice.

If you fire with your basic 2 dice attack, you can achieve the same or better results.

1 minute ago, Transmogrifier said:

Think of Jam as a bonus attack that cant do damage but will always strip a token. Compare to a 2 dice attack with focus on a low initiative ship against most high value targets and you're probably going to be achieving more with Jam than the 2 dice attack.

If cannons did bonus attacks, I'd be much happier with this.

But it really doesn't make sense to have 2 threads about jamming, and then talking about the Jamming beam in this thread as well

7 minutes ago, Transmogrifier said:

Think of Jam as a bonus attack that cant do damage but will always strip a token. Compare to a 2 dice attack with focus on a low initiative ship against most high value targets and you're probably going to be achieving more with Jam than the 2 dice attack.

If you swoop in with a low initiative pilot and jam Fel then I'm just going to double reposition instead. Maybe I would have preferred to focus or evade, but I still get to do my actions, and the tokens are gone at the end of the round so it won't matter to me.

6 minutes ago, Commander Kaine said:

If cannons did bonus attacks, I'd be much happier with this.

Yeah I meant the action, particularly on a ship that is likely outclassed otherwise and providing value to the squad in another way most of the time. The cannon seems like a solution waiting for a problem?

4 minutes ago, HolySorcerer said:

If you swoop in with a low initiative pilot and jam Fel then I'm just going to double reposition instead. Maybe I would have preferred to focus or evade, but I still get to do my actions, and the tokens are gone at the end of the round so it won't matter to me. 

in a vacuum, sure, but if it forces you to bail instead of engaging/neuters your offense then that is value by itself?

13 hours ago, jpltanis said:

Since one can only jam within range 1 and the token will go away at the end of the round, what is the point of it?

It is totally a useless action to take. Why would anyone take it, if you can do the focus action instead.

It also won't be able to cancel Target Locks in 2.0 (but it will probably stop reinforce and the new calculate).

EDIT: Or maybe it will be able to, despite TLs not having blue tokens anymore. Folks are talking about announced rules changes.

When wave 2 hits jamming Poe might be very powerful.

Jamming beam is also a hard counter to reinforce. It's impossible for Reinforce to block a jamming beam. With ISB slicers, could prevent a reinforce in the next turn, even at low Initiative.

22 minutes ago, Commander Kaine said:

You don't get it.

You shoot at Howlrunner, let's say at Range 2. One of your ships, at least 25% of your list, because there just isn't cheaper cannon carriers (maybe the scyk, but I don't think even those are worth it) , sacrifices an attack to remove 1 focus or evade token.

To achieve this, you might need to spend mods on your attack, or it might not hit at all.

If it hits, but the defender spent the tokens already, it does nothing.

Then you just have a Howlrunner with the same 3 health, and 3 green dice.

If you fire with your basic 2 dice attack, you can achieve the same or better results.

No, I get it, I was just referring to Jam action, which is what OP was asking about. I agree that Jamming Beam is bafflingly useless right now.

On Feroph, jam doubles as an evade token

On Vermeil, it's whatever the red die equivalent would be

Mods + less mods for opponent = should be fine

Range 1 sucks, but jam still lets you dogpile damage onto a target if you set it up right

Also the jamming beam rolls 3 dice and can inflict up to four jam tokens (if you get a great roll). I'm sure Soontir would love that.

Edit: I furthermore GUARANTEE that at least after the meta cools down, jamming beam will be THE cheapest way to get any kind of 3-dice attack. Good for punching through a token-stacker if you're bringing mostly 2 primaries for example.

Just now, ClassicalMoser said:

Also the jamming beam rolls 3 dice and can inflict up to four jam tokens (if you get a great roll). I'm sure Soontir would love that.

Unless you invest in the ISB, all of them fall off at the end of the round. I guess it has potential if they're investing Yt-2400 level points in it? But at the same time, this is not the way I would tech against this!