1 is kind of not true. Reapers only prevent token attacks if you bring isb slicer, move after the ship, or block it. Otherwise it just uses its action to get whatever token back and carries on, maybe with one less mod.

Fenn neuters way more for way cheaper.

4 hours ago, Ronu said:

Striker Aces have interesting enough skills to hyper increase your utilization of the ships basic abilities in creative ways. Unlike many support ships, the Reaper can be a serious threat. It can go from Support to Attack just by taking a different action for itself vs denying a opponent. Stressed ships are just hosed if a Reaper can Jam it. Meaning ships that want to K-turn, Sloop, or Talon roll have to think about it. If your jammed before you move your now 2 or 3 turns without mods. It really makes your opponent think hard.

This.

The Reaper can easily play 'gunship' just as well as a striker, so it's worth a 20 point heavy swarmer right there. Therefore, whilst it's more expensive than the bug, it does contribute a lot more in actually shooting other ships down.

With an ISB slicer, you're essentially trading one action on the reaper for two on (probably) more valuable ships. Which is nice, but hardly devastating because it's hard to build a ship to really benefit from it. That said, as a general action economy boost, it's really nice, and a tactical officer or slicer-equipped reaper is a great fourth ship supporting the three named strikers.

Fenn with Hotshot Copilot I agree is a big problem. This way he can essentially strip two ships of the ability to modify dice, Now this isn't specifically a problem (it punishes small squads, but given how combo-stacking benefits encourages small squads, it's nice to see something that punishes them, like bombs and splash damage punish swarms) BUT the ability to stack attack-dice-crippling abilities is just painful. At our last game night kit, I saw a Ghost squad with Kanan/Sensor Jammer supported by Magva Yarro and Fenn Rau.

Two ships each lose an attack die, the ability to use focus tokens, the ability to reroll more than one attack dice, and lose the first hit they roll to the jammer, and there's bugger all they can do about it.

It's equivalent to the selflessness/lowhrrick/biggs/R4-D6 rubbish at its height, except it's stacked attack dice denial instead of stacked defence.

Reapers seem good but I really think the fact Jam is a range-restricted action and the maximum PS being 8, along with a higher cost, makes them nowhere near Fenn's level of broken. You need Slicers to really make the most of the Jam action, while Fenn without anything other than VI is still really good.

Remember that Fenn can also shoot backwards as he slowly plods in one direction or the other. The reaper is going to get in a shot and then fly away, being useless for a while due to the lack of white hard turns. (2.0)

32 minutes ago, william1134 said:

Remember that Fenn can also shoot backwards as he slowly plods in one direction or the other. The reaper is going to get in a shot and then fly away, being useless for a while due to the lack of white hard turns. (2.0)

Have you ever flown strikers? The one bank and hard one (which is white) turns you around very fast

48 minutes ago, Roundy1161 said:

Have you ever flown strikers? The one bank and hard one (which is white) turns you around very fast

The Reapers turns are red though, which is a pretty big deal.

5 minutes ago, HolySorcerer said:

The Reapers turns are red though, which is a pretty big deal.

Not the `1 turn. It's white.

@DR4CO how did you fly that Miranda Low Strezra matchup?

1.0 jam does nothing against reinforce, right? So Low will still spend his token to save the other two. Usually he‘s my first target - does that change? I could imagine that two reapers and Inq can burn down Ezra pretty fast (PS kill, even), so he might be a first target, too?

22 minutes ago, HolySorcerer said:

The Reapers turns are red though, which is a pretty big deal.

16 minutes ago, Red42 said:

Not the `1 turn. It's white.

For clarification, it's red in 2.0, white in 1.0.

I think as a general chassis the Sheathipede is crazy undercosted. Two arcs, crew, droid, coordinate action and 5 health for 15 points? Ummmm sure? And it just gets more crazy from there when you add pilot abilities relative to their cost.

Fenn w/ VI is just beyond broke with the coordinate action. And even more broke when you add in hotshot and his ability. There is zero opportunity cost of him having absolute perfect information to coordinate actions that are most useful knocking off a focus token before most other ships fire, and locking down other tokens on ships as they activate.

Yes, I understand the strength of jam but it comes with opportunity cost of not doing an evade or focus action, has range restrictions, can only affect up to two ships at once (with ISB slicer crew) and maxes out at PS8.

Fenn on the other hand has coordinated a boost to get a friendly out of arc, is knocking a focus off someone before they get to fire, locking down the token stack on another and hoping someone else shoots at him to strip a third. Oh and he is doing that for just a few points more than a base reaper cost.

dont worry come 2.0 the reaper's teeth will be pulled anyway.

8 hours ago, Managarmr said:

They are really fast, which means they can easily run away and avoid destruction.

Some of the posts here are a bit like "Cholera is totally fine, because the Plague is horrible".

Yes, undercosted PS9 EPT Fenn is total BS, as well as e.g. Tragedy Simulator and other c r ap.

But some of the 1.0 Reaper, 1.0 Krennic, 1.0 ISB slicer etc stuff looks dangerously close to real NPE as well. I guess, would 1.0 continue longer than early september, we probably would see some really obnoxious builds/squadron combos emerging.

I don't disagree with this. As I said, being "not as bad as Fenn" isn't much of an accomplishment.

13 minutes ago, Vineheart01 said:

dont worry come 2.0 the reaper's teeth will be pulled anyway.

I really worry that they went too far with the 2.0 version of the reaper. I refuse to play 1.0 reaper as I think the 2.0 is just going to be such a disappointment in comparison.

2 minutes ago, william1134 said:

I really worry that they went too far with the 2.0 version of the reaper. I refuse to play 1.0 reaper as I think the 2.0 is just going to be such a disappointment in comparison.

i imagine it will still be a solid ship but it will lack anything that made it a true threat.
I feel like they did that so the choice between it and the Lambda was specific subtle reasons, rather than buff the lambda.

Jam in 2.0 isnt worthless but compared to its 1.0 counterpart its sickeningly weak. And thats kinda the whole shtick of the ship.
All 4 of the crew that come with it got nerfed, though the Coordinate one is understandable since basically all action upgrades simply upgrade actions to white. Even Deathtroopers got nerfed and they were utter crap imo to begin with lol

I dont think the two are even close in comparison. Fenns ability is passive and is in arc at range 1-3 with two arcs. His ability alone shuts down multiple tokens TL+Focus for an entire round. A reaper can jam Quickdraw, to force him to lose his FCS Lock, then he establishes it again after attacking and has it for revenge shot. Fenn just shuts him down for the round.

Coordinate is not a problem in the game, and reapers with tactical officer is nothing scary. Squad leader has been around for ages. Its the PS10+ coordinate that is the problem, and combine that with a 20pt ship and your squad is now insanely powerful with any ship getting actions after seeing the entire board. This game is (was?) about making correct decisions and reading your opponent and Fenn spits all over that when a PS1 ship can boost/barrel roll at PS11 every round and take out ps9/10 ships.

And Fenn can shut down tokens and coordinate every round in the game where as the reaper cannot (unless it has PTL or EI and then its getting crazy expensive) and with FAA Fenn even gets that boost barrel roll to keep arc. Its a disgusting little ship.

I don't think many in the thread have flown against ISB reapers yet nor fully considered the disruption a single ISB reaper can provide. I don't really have an opinion on if its worse than Fenn, but people are being entirely too dismissive of the reaper.

14 minutes ago, gennataos said:

I don't think many in the thread have flown against ISB reapers yet nor fully considered the disruption a single ISB reaper can provide. I don't really have an opinion on if its worse than Fenn, but people are being entirely too dismissive of the reaper.

Have you actually seen it on a table or better yet used it yourself? I have not seen anyone yet say “it’s not effective at what it tries to do”. All anyone is saying is that per the OP the Reaper is nowhere near as abusive nor does it creat the type of NPE that Fenn or any of the sheathapede Pilots do.

7 minutes ago, Ronu said:

Have you actually seen it on a table or better yet used it yourself? I have not seen anyone yet say “it’s not effective at what it tries to do”. All anyone is saying is that per the OP the Reaper is nowhere near as abusive nor does it creat the type of NPE that Fenn or any of the sheathapede Pilots do.

My opponent immediately checked out of a game turn two when I jammed off the lock from his munition carrier and gave him a jam token from slicers. He saw basic math removed him from the game, and didn't want to play anymore. It wasn't even anger, just "oh wow... yeah that's dumb, I don't really want to do this". Sounds like it's a lot of peoples' first response to encountering slicers. It's the most feelsbadman thing I've seen in the game so far.

So yes, I think the NPE is there - reapers tell you that you can't even try to roll natties with a lot of things like munitions, where Fenn would let you make the mistake of trying which feels better.

13 minutes ago, Brunas said:

My opponent immediately checked out of a game turn two when I jammed off the lock from his munition carrier and gave him a jam token from slicers. He saw basic math removed him from the game, and didn't want to play anymore. It wasn't even anger, just "oh wow... yeah that's dumb, I don't really want to do this". Sounds like it's a lot of peoples' first response to encountering slicers. It's the most feelsbadman thing I've seen in the game so far.

So yes, I think the NPE is there - reapers tell you that you can't even try to roll natties with a lot of things like munitions, where Fenn would let you make the mistake of trying which feels better.

Sounds like someone whom if you had used Black 1 for a similar effect of removing the lock would have done the same thing. Jamming stops token mods but not passives. Reapers are also generally affecting a single ship 2 if they are lucky, but often it’s jam to remove a token, Slicer to prevent it being reapplied on the next action.

20 minutes ago, Ronu said:

Have you actually seen it on a table or better yet used it yourself? I have not seen anyone yet say “it’s not effective at what it tries to do”. All anyone is saying is that per the OP the Reaper is nowhere near as abusive nor does it creat the type of NPE that Fenn or any of the sheathapede Pilots do.

Sorry, I intended to imply that I had flown against it (several times).

As @Brunas illustrated above, it can feel pretty bad.. Fenn can HSCP your focus away, but only freezes your TL. A single ISB slicer, of any PS, can shut down an alpha strike outright. It cripples many canonical ship builds (Poe, OL, PtL anything, etc). It can make your shiny new X-Wing swarm hit like a wet noodle. And with ailerons, you're not going to stop it from getting within range to do what it wants, when it wants. It doesn't even have to shoot at you to make you sad, it can just fly right behind you and jam you.

If someone is already running a list with passive mods and/or stress, they probably won't see it being a big deal. If your preferred list needs tokens, you're in for a rough ride. Good luck.

I don't know about anyone else, but if there's one thing which feels bad to me in the game, it's when people "touch my stuff". When they take my tokens away. When they tractor beam me. When they ion me. When they're interacting with my ship and I'm not. That's what ISB reapers do. Whether or not that's worse than Fenn, I don't know, that's subjective. I just would caution against the dismissive tone people have had.

2 hours ago, viedit said:

I think as a general chassis the Sheathipede is crazy undercosted. Two arcs, crew, droid, coordinate action and 5 health for 15 points? Ummmm sure? And it just gets more crazy from there when you add pilot abilities relative to their cost.

This.

Compare with an academy pilot TIE fighter for only 3 more points, it's a bit of a joke.

32 minutes ago, Brunas said:

My opponent immediately checked out of a game turn two when I jammed off the lock from his munition carrier and gave him a jam token from slicers. He saw basic math removed him from the game, and didn't want to play anymore. It wasn't even anger, just "oh wow... yeah that's dumb, I don't really want to do this". Sounds like it's a lot of peoples' first response to encountering slicers. It's the most feelsbadman thing I've seen in the game so far.

So yes, I think the NPE is there - reapers tell you that you can't even try to roll natties with a lot of things like munitions, where Fenn would let you make the mistake of trying which feels better.

12 minutes ago, gennataos said:

I don't know about anyone else, but if there's one thing which feels bad to me in the game, it's when people "touch my stuff". When they take my tokens away. When they tractor beam me. When they ion me. When they're interacting with my ship and I'm not. That's what ISB reapers do. Whether or not that's worse than Fenn, I don't know, that's subjective. I just would caution against the dismissive tone people have had.

I understand. It is a potential issue with token-powered abilities (be it a missile or poe dameron) because you can prevent that token being generated for a very low cost of 24 points (25-26 if you're equipping a survivability modification).

Black One already goes "nope, no target locks for you" (twice a turn, depending on the build you've given Poe) as do other abilities like Countermeasures or Wes Janson, so losing your lock consistently before you can fire torpedoes off isn't exactly new - and nor is someone playing range control games to never give you a chance to both lock and shoot.

11 minutes ago, gennataos said:

A single ISB slicer, of any PS, can shut down an alpha strike outright. It cripples many canonical ship builds (Poe, OL, PtL anything, etc). It can make your shiny new X-Wing swarm hit like a wet noodle.

A heavy swarm losing two tokens is no big deal. Massed unmodified red dice can still (I assure you, playing a striker swarm) handle most lists very roughly indeed, especially with three ships still getting a lock/focus.

That said, getting it on a (relatively) cheap ship is, as is the fact that it'll still work on a deadeye missile carrier. It's a very good support ship for its cost.

That said, it's range 1-2 on a PS1 ship (so your opponent was moving afterwards). If they were at range 2 or less before you moved, there's pretty good odds you were too close after your move for a missile shot anyway, and whilst you have no dice-fettling tokens, neither does the reaper.

3 minutes ago, gennataos said:

A single ISB slicer, of any PS, can shut down an alpha strike outright.

Lets reel this back a bit. A reaper is not going to be stopping any alpha strike unless the alpha player has no idea what he is doing. The reaper has to get range 2 in arc, or range 1 out of arc. And knowing the fastest speed is basically a 5 straight with ailerons, the alpha player will wipe it off the board instantly. Fenn on the other hand...

2 minutes ago, gennataos said:

Sorry, I intended to imply that I had flown against it (several times).

As @Brunas illustrated above, it can feel pretty bad.. Fenn can HSCP your focus away, but only freezes your TL. A single ISB slicer, of any PS, can shut down an alpha strike outright. It cripples many canonical ship builds (Poe, OL, PtL anything, etc). It can make your shiny new X-Wing swarm hit like a wet noodle. And with ailerons, you're not going to stop it from getting within range to do what it wants, when it wants. It doesn't even have to shoot at you to make you sad, it can just fly right behind you and jam you.

If someone is already running a list with passive mods and/or stress, they probably won't see it being a big deal. If your preferred list needs tokens, you're in for a rough ride. Good luck.

I don't know about anyone else, but if there's one thing which feels bad to me in the game, it's when people "touch my stuff". When they take my tokens away. When they tractor beam me. When they ion me. When they're interacting with my ship and I'm not. That's what ISB reapers do. Whether or not that's worse than Fenn, I don't know, that's subjective. I just would caution against the dismissive tone people have had.

So NPE ships like Poe, or OL, X-7’s, or Harpoon boats, to use your example. Now have something that makes them less effective, potentially leaves us with?

NPE - NPE counterplay = balanced match? Not seeing a bad thing here. It’s no longer who goes first to activate their NPE wins like it can in many cases. Certainly some NPE are more abusive like a Fenn which is what the topic is inquiring specifically.

Again I am not saying the Reaper cannot cause frustration or even consternation for players. I saw it first hand. Again no one is being dismissive of the Reaper’s abilities. In regards to this topic specifically though, it’s not Fenn Rau levels of NPE.

2 minutes ago, wurms said:

Lets reel this back a bit. A reaper is not going to be stopping any alpha strike unless the alpha player has no idea what he is doing. The reaper has to get range 2 in arc, or range 1 out of arc. And knowing the fastest speed is basically a 5 straight with ailerons, the alpha player will wipe it off the board instantly. Fenn on the other hand...

That's a bit optimistic on the part of the enemy. I assure you it's possible to play range control games quite effectively with ailerons - bank away, turn back, for example, to buy time, and whilst the fastest straight-line move is a speed 5 straight, the actual fastest move is a bank 1/bank 3 high-speed turn, which often catches people off guard with the sheer amount of ground it covers.

I doubt it'll 'stop an alpha strike dead' as a lot of people are claiming, but nor is it easy to play around. The key thing will be not keeping your squaddies in range 1 of each other (which you should be doing in a bombs-and-harpoons world unless you've got some truly epic range-1-special-ability-synergy) you'll get one ship out of three-to-four double-jammed. Which is annoying but can be worked around.

The reaper will be annoying to play if your squad depends totally and utterly on a single ship getting a specific token. But whilst I don't like to talk about 'winning in list-building' as opposed to actual tactics, whilst you can't win in list-building you can certainly lose there.

NPE doesn't mean unfair. It means, fundamentally, 'not fun to play against'. And I can understand that 'I can't do actions' is upsetting for the same reason people hate effective control lists because it basically removes your ability to participate in the game in the first place. But you should either have more ships (so some aren't jammed), or the ability to upgrade your ships to not need the tokens - which is not uncommon with expertise, predator, targeting synchroniser, you name it.

I

7 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

That said, it's range 1-2 on a PS1 ship (so your opponent was moving afterwards). If they were at range 2 or less before you moved, there's pretty good odds you were too close after your move for a missile shot anyway, and whilst you have no dice-fettling tokens, neither does the reaper.

7 minutes ago, wurms said:

Lets reel this back a bit. A reaper is not going to be stopping any alpha strike unless the alpha player has no idea what he is doing. The reaper has to get range 2 in arc, or range 1 out of arc. And knowing the fastest speed is basically a 5 straight with ailerons, the alpha player will wipe it off the board instantly. Fenn on the other hand...

Having spent a lot of time with PS4 Silencers the last few months jumping from outside of Range 3 to Range 1 to avoid alpha strikes from higher PS ships, please believe me when I say that doing it with a Reaper is not going to be especially hard. You make sure your -1 turn puts you the furthest forward you can be while still outside of the opposing ship's alpha envelope. 1-bank + 3-bank will then be almost always fast enough to get someone Range 2 in arc before they move.

If I've learned anything from flying Strikers, it's that you can close ground incredibly fast from a huge number of directions.