10 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Stack with the blocker having intimidation for extra synergy, if you like (hopefully that's got a bit cheaper, too, as it's pretty overpriced in 1.0)

Agreed. Ruthlessness is no longer anything like 1.0 Ruthlessness at all. That was a cheap 'splash damage' effect. This now allows you to kill your original target even more dead at the cost of some collateral damage to your squad. Which, to me, suits the title of the talent better.

This. It's like using self-damaging to use supernatural reflexes to boost; you're not going to do it very often but it can be scary as heck when you do.

Note also that it's not primary weapon only, so you're not just trading 1-for-1 on damage, but can also use it to push through weapons with an if-you-hit effect (especially important for ion weapons which need multiple uncancelled hits to ionize larger targets), or with an advanced to push

Iden Versio's ability is "Before a friendly TIE/In fighter at range 0-1 would suffer one or more damage, you may spend 1 [ charge] . If you do, prevent that damage. " - it's not restricted to 'when defending', so can be used against any source of damage.

Using it on a single point of non-critical damage is probably a waste unless it's going to kill the TIE fighter in question, though, in which case I have to question your choice to use Ruthlessness....

Provided you've got a swarm of cheap TIE fighters, she's great value for money. However, if she's handing out rerolls like candy, you probably don't need Ruthlessness so much, because the rerolls let you cope with blank attack dice without shooting down your own dudes.

Personally, I prefer the new one for flavour (and that's as an Imperial swarm player), because it does fit ruthlessness. It's not magically giving your guns splash damage against other enemies, so much as the quote from the decimator's mission, Interdiction:

Why aren't our batteries firing?"

"Our fighters are engaging the enemy, Commander. We have no clear shot."

"I have heard you praise the accuracy of your gunnery teams on numerous occasions. I hope it was more than idle boasting. Commence firing !"

It's more effective fire because you accept collateral damage to friendly grunts (something the Empire has never been too bothered about when it matters; such as Tarkin shooting out Scarif Base).

Fair. The card could be better tho.

On 7/18/2018 at 8:35 AM, Ronu said:

Ruthless was never designed with a specific ship in mind

You sure about that? It came with the Decimator, and was featured in the Decimator's scenario, so I am pretty sure that it's the best for Ruthlessness. You're not likely lining up an bullseye arcs, you can't get an evade for Juke, you don't have reload for Saturation Salvo, and you're so big that Lone Wolf is hard to set up (not to mention the fact that you don't roll any defense dice when defending at range 1-2, so you only get half value for it).

I also really like how it dovetails with Rear Admiral Chiraneau's ability. He reinforces, then he rolls a very average roll of [blank] [focus] [hit], he changes the focus to a hit with his ability, then damages a friendly to change the blank to a hit with Ruthless. And with a mobile firing arc, he has more chances of getting an enemy in arc that has a friendly at range 0-1. Of course, if you have to move your arc, you don't convert the focus because you have no reinforce token. Still, I think Decimators are a good home for Ruthless.

P.S. I love how Decimators are no longer "evil Millennium Falcons ", and are instead command/patrol ships. That's how I always thought of them, rather than boosting out of arcs and around obstacles.

18 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

It's more effective fire because you accept collateral damage to friendly grunts (something the Empire has never been too bothered about when it matters; such as Tarkin shooting out Scarif Base).

Okay, but the card is unusable unless there are friendly ships in range to damage. Not super thematic.

4 hours ago, HolySorcerer said:

Okay, but the card is unusable unless there are friendly ships in range to damage. Not super thematic.

Well, that's not really being especially ruthless at that point. It's just, you know, shooting at the enemy. I guess it's the shock, or surprise, or whatever making it more effective, but the ruthless element is 'I don't care about my wingmen's survival if it gets the job done' , and firing into the melee, Ramsey Bolton style.

12 hours ago, Commander Kaine said:

Fair. The card could be better tho. 

It could. How much it costs, relative to other abilities, and whether you get enough extra punch to justify the friendly fire (because it's modifying rather than adding a hit) is something we'll have to wait and see (as yet another alternative to Sloane*, Howlrunner**, Tarkin***, or Predator****).

That's five total options for giving target lock-less imperial fighters some ability to mitigate blank red dice - each of which will have their own strengths and weaknesses.

* Who hands out rerolls but feeds her ability to no small amount on the death of your ships, so whilst you're not actively doing damage to your own squad you're potentially trailing easy kills in the hope of your opponent finishing someone off, and can't control who she gets you rerolls against)

** Who gives you a cheap, no-strings-attached reroll on every primary attack but does drag your swarm into a tight range 1 bubble. Harpoon missiles may be gone but swarm-dodging TIE Phantoms and Trajectory Simulator bombs are still a thing.

*** Who gives you a mass squad-wide target lock but only on something he's locked already, which - since the Reaper, Phantom and Lambda all lack native Target Lock, means you need to invest quite a bit in the ability for him to actually use said option.

**** Which again gives you a cheap, no-strings-attached reroll but only if you bullseye someone - which is going to make it far more effective against larger bases than smaller ones, and on high initiative ships who have multiple action-free repositioning options (Soontir Fel and Duchess spring to mind) than relatively unwieldy 'normal' ships.

29 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Well, that's not really being especially ruthless at that point. It's just, you know, shooting at the enemy. I guess it's the shock, or surprise, or whatever making it more effective, but the ruthless element is 'I don't care about my wingmen's survival if it gets the job done' , and firing into the melee, Ramsey Bolton style.

It could. How much it costs, relative to other abilities, and whether you get enough extra punch to justify the friendly fire (because it's modifying rather than adding a hit) is something we'll have to wait and see (as yet another alternative to Sloane*, Howlrunner**, Tarkin***, or Predator****).

That's five total options for giving target lock-less imperial fighters some ability to mitigate blank red dice - each of which will have their own strengths and weaknesses.

* Who hands out rerolls but feeds her ability to no small amount on the death of your ships, so whilst you're not actively doing damage to your own squad you're potentially trailing easy kills in the hope of your opponent finishing someone off, and can't control who she gets you rerolls against)

** Who gives you a cheap, no-strings-attached reroll on every primary attack but does drag your swarm into a tight range 1 bubble. Harpoon missiles may be gone but swarm-dodging TIE Phantoms and Trajectory Simulator bombs are still a thing.

*** Who gives you a mass squad-wide target lock but only on something he's locked already, which - since the Reaper, Phantom and Lambda all lack native Target Lock, means you need to invest quite a bit in the ability for him to actually use said option.

**** Which again gives you a cheap, no-strings-attached reroll but only if you bullseye someone - which is going to make it far more effective against larger bases than smaller ones, and on high initiative ships who have multiple action-free repositioning options (Soontir Fel and Duchess spring to mind) than relatively unwieldy 'normal' ships.

I guess my problem is that it is very situational.

Fearless is a no brainer. There are already incentives to go into range 1, even without spending any additional points on synergy. This gives additional benefits (the same as Ruthless gives) plus, you can take it with the Fang, which piles onto this benefit.

Selfless is great, because canceling crits is amazing, but you also take it yourself. The cost still limits it.

Ruthless, I think is the weakest of the three.

All three cards depend on positioning. Scum wants to position themselves, Rebels want to fly near their protected target, and Imps want some useless minion in the way, which is flavorful.

However, Rebels and Imps pay an additional, guaranteed cost (taking self damage). The exchange rate is hit to hit, and crit to crit respectively, so it seems balanced, with rebels having a small edge, because the shield + crit interaction, plus cancelling damage is better than forcing it through. Green dice are worse than red ones, so it's more valuable to modify the exchange rate this way. Fearless however does NOT guarantee a cost at all. You MIGHT get shot, but they also have several ways to negate the enemy's range 1 benefits, namely all Fangs, Boba Fett and Fenn Rau(doubly so). (Basically scum wave 1) Which is, from a flavor POV is great, all mandalorians are fearless, range 1 madmen. My kind of scum.

In order to balance them, I think changing Ruthless to modify blanks to crits would go a long way of making it in line with the others.

On the other hand, this list I'm going to run:

Lt. Sai (Lambda)

(after you perform a coordinate action, if the ship you chose performed an action on your action bar, you may perform that action)

Jerjerrod

(During the System Phase, you may spend 2 [charge]. If you do, choose the [1 left bank], [1 straight], or [1 right bank] template. Each friendly ship may perform a red (boost) action using that template. [2 Charges, regenerates])

Sloane

(After another friendly ship at range 0-3 defends, if it is destroyed, the attacker gains 2 stress tokens. While a friendly ship at range 0-3 performs an attack against a stressed ship, it may reroll 1 attack die.)

3 Black Squadron Aces, with Intimidation

And someone with Ruthless... Hmm.. It seems a bit expensive in my guesstimation. Maybe Instead of a Lambda, a Reaper WITH ruthless? Or a really cheap ace.

I probably wouldn't bother taking Ruthlessness and Sloane. Once you're rerolling an attack die with focus it's got a 75% chance of coming up 'boom', so having ruthlessness on top (especially with what you point out as the rather steep cost of using it) seems like overkill.

If you were to mix and match Black Squadron Aces and other named TIE pilots with Ruthlessness and Intimidation, I wonder how many you could fit in a squad?

1 hour ago, Magnus Grendel said:

I probably wouldn't bother taking Ruthlessness and Sloane. Once you're rerolling an attack die with focus it's got a 75% chance of coming up 'boom', so having ruthlessness on top (especially with what you point out as the rather steep cost of using it) seems like overkill.

If you were to mix and match Black Squadron Aces and other named TIE pilots with Ruthlessness and Intimidation, I wonder how many you could fit in a squad?

I'm thinking to use Ruthless and Sloane, just to make sure Sloane can trigger more often.

Fifth brother, Sloane, Jerjerrod, on Ruthless RAC. We could change Sloane to someone else (Minister Tua works well), but Ruthless is pretty much the only Talent that makes sense for RAC.

And then 4 Intimidation TIE-s

You can probably build a pretty decent list with 5 named pilots, and Black Sqd usually flies in groups of 6, so 5-6 depending on your upgrades.

That looks rather tastier.

Chiraneau's ability takes care of focus results, Ruthlessness takes care of blank results, meaning you can spend your action reinforcing or lining up your turret as needed.

Sloane gives the squaddies rerolls, and hands out stress - probably the ability to stress an opponent as or more important as it messes with their dial - but the TIE fighters won't complain about rerolls to hit stressed targets, and - as noted, ruthlessness lets you leave a TIE fighter on 1-2 health - an easy kill, but stress, and rerolls, if the enemy takes the shot.

Jerjerrod giving the decimator boost every few turns is nice, and the TIEs getting it too gives them a touch of manoeuvrability they don't normally get (although given their green dial, it's not that much use since they're nailed to a green dial not a heck of a lot better than an X-wing if you want to clear said stress).

I would say Minister Tua is a better call than Fifth Brother. You need reinforce to trigger Chiraneau's ability, and if you have his ability going, Fifth brother's ability is kind of redundant (rolling multiple focus results with three dice isn't that common), plus reinforce is key to the decimator.....you know....not dying?

That way, you've got focus results (Chiraneau), blank results (Ruthlessness), defence (Tua) and repositioning (Jerjerrod) all being taken care of without touching your perform action step, meaning the only thing you have to worry about is keeping your turret pointed the right way, and repairing criticals.

Plus, 4 Intimidation TIEs is enough of a screen to block people and with intimidation & ruthlessness & the lack of focus/evade from colliding as a combination, getting blocked is going to be VERY painful - and makes it much more likely that the extra hit you've bought at a painful cost of self-damage will stick (or will push through a - very likely - critical that might otherwise have been dodged)

6 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

That looks rather tastier.

Chiraneau's ability takes care of focus results, Ruthlessness takes care of blank results, meaning you can spend your action reinforcing or lining up your turret as needed.

Sloane gives the squaddies rerolls, and hands out stress - probably the ability to stress an opponent as or more important as it messes with their dial - but the TIE fighters won't complain about rerolls to hit stressed targets, and - as noted, ruthlessness lets you leave a TIE fighter on 1-2 health - an easy kill, but stress, and rerolls, if the enemy takes the shot.

Jerjerrod giving the decimator boost every few turns is nice, and the TIEs getting it too gives them a touch of manoeuvrability they don't normally get (although given their green dial, it's not that much use since they're nailed to a green dial not a heck of a lot better than an X-wing if you want to clear said stress).

I would say Minister Tua is a better call than Fifth Brother. You need reinforce to trigger Chiraneau's ability, and if you have his ability going, Fifth brother's ability is kind of redundant (rolling multiple focus results with three dice isn't that common), plus reinforce is key to the decimator.....you know....not dying?

That way, you've got focus results (Chiraneau), blank results (Ruthlessness), defence (Tua) and repositioning (Jerjerrod) all being taken care of without touching your perform action step, meaning the only thing you have to worry about is keeping your turret pointed the right way, and repairing criticals.

Plus, 4 Intimidation TIEs is enough of a screen to block people and with intimidation & ruthlessness & the lack of focus/evade from colliding as a combination, getting blocked is going to be VERY painful - and makes it much more likely that the extra hit you've bought at a painful cost of self-damage will stick (or will push through a - very likely - critical that might otherwise have been dodged)

My fav. part about the list, is that it is very flavorful. The Fifth Brother is still useful for action-less focus if I get stressed or sth. If I can fit it in the points, it's a good insurance.

Tua and Jerjerrod both stress you, so you can't use both at the same time.