5 hours ago, BVRCH said:

have no offensive dice mods if they reinforce.

I think that's the key thing. The thing that makes wookies zing is Expertise, Predator, or at least Wookie Commandoes. Without that, yes, reinforce makes you tough, but flinging unmodified attack dice means you can't actually kill anything.

Kanan Jarrus might be a good idea, if only to get the force token for shooting...

Some of the winners and losers on the Sum side:

Winner:

Moralo Eval: the ability to first flee from some focus fire and then come back from a different angle (hopefully behind the opponent) is pretty awesome!

Dalan Oberos: the relatively low initiative may seem like a problem, but there will be a lot more medium bases out there as well. So he has 2 charges to remove an enemy shield and possibly recover one as well. That can be significant.

Drea Renthal: granting a near Howlrunner ability to friendly ships is nice!

Losers:

Thweek: he no longer exists?

Jumpmaster chassis: it's kind of hard to say if it's a loser because the point cost and available upgrades will make or break the ship.

The biggest loser is the Ghost in my opinion. Went from being one of the top ships in the game to:

-losing two shields (and not gaining any equivalent hull like the other ships that lost shields did)

-losing evade for the new worse reinforce

-losing tlt and it's free end of round Cannon shot means it's multi-angle coverage is significantly decreased. And the bonus attack is a super situational TIE SF like rear arc shot which is incredibly difficult to ever pull off and you're better to just run one of the new gunners instead of having an attack shuttle docked.

-rear shot went from 4 dice down to 3 or even 2 with the Phantom 2.

-lost it's 5 flip for a 4 flip, decreasing mobility

-Can't modify posistion anymore (unlike the other two large Rebel ships that have boost/barrel roll) which means that 0 agility + bad reinforce + lost shields = this ship is going to be a sitting duck that dies fast

-Kanan's ability is decidedly much worse as it appears to no longer work on himself and when the Ghost is half your list or more, a non-functional ability is a huge detriment.

- Chopper hands out two Jams instead of stress

-no rear torpedo slot at least that we can see

So all in all several nerfs and no real buffs

18 hours ago, Nyxen said:

Mr Antilles, I don't feel so good...

I was having a good day, you monster.

9 hours ago, It’s One Of Ours said:

The problem with the linked Barrel-Roll off focus, is (again) the B-Wing is sorely lacking in blue maneuvers. This means that if you really want to make use of that, then you go Ten Numb. Otherwise you hope for a crew slot so you can throw Kanan or Nien Numb on board. Or Leia, somewhere...

And even though the Auzituck went down to 8 hits, it still gets reinforce, a 180-degree arc, and a far better dial with the only exception being the B’s 2-K and 1-Tallons. The thing even gets a red barrel-roll. Even though it’s a loser in v2, the Wookie gunship still wins out IMO. And tbh, I’m not sure 9 points for the v2 HLC that’s locked to the bullseye-arc, would be worth it... But it still comes back to the problem of having to balance the B-Wing’s problems by making it dirt-******* cheap.

B-Wings have more blues than before, in that they've gotten the 3-straight in addition to their 1e greens, and the only new red are in entirely new 1-Ts. It can be awkward to turn a B-Wing around if you're too close to a large-base ship, but the 1-Ts will make a big difference in that sense--unless you're nearly dead-center, you'll be able to slip one way or another around a large base. 2e HLC kinda needs a barrel roll, and B-Wings are probably one of the only cannon-based ships which is able to barrel roll and get a token. Braylen Stramm seems good for large-ship hunting, in that he can BR into fully modded 4-dice at a reasonable Init.

Auzituck I'd guess becomes more expensive, and there aren't cheap crew like Wookiee Commandos anymore to provide them with some semblance of an offense while reinforcing. ARC, also, I'd guess becomes more expensive. They're all named pilots with abilities. Those extra arcs were almost surely under-priced in 1e, because of a bias towards making new ships better than old ships. B-Wings getting cheaper isn't the only option: other stuff getting more expensive is also an option. For instance, I'd probably guess that Auzitucks will be 51+ points, so that a 4 Wookiee squad isn't possible. Even with the reinforce and HP nerfs, 4x Wookiee is probably too sturdy, given the reduction in offensive dice modification. Half the reason for 2e is so that things can be priced fairly against each other, and yet almost every thread I see seems to presume this won't happen.

And given the way they've talked about upgrades having prices different on different ships, baseline cost of B-Wings doesn't necessarily need to be as cheap, if they have cheaper upgrades. Maybe they can get system and cannon upgrades lower priced, so that you don't get into 5-B squads. I'm both super excited about the prospect of cheaper upgrades on some ships, and fearful FFG won't lean into it hard enough. 1e Cavern Angel Zealot is a great design: it bakes in the cost of a 1-point Elite upgrade, while giving that point back in Renegade Refit. My hope is certainly that a TIE Punisher (maybe also a B-Wing) will fully take advantage of that. Punisher is a ship which is useless without ordnance, unless its broken-cheap. So it ought to be overpriced as a base chassis, with cheaper ordnance, so that a fully-built one is fairly priced. B-Wing swarm being able to include Advanced Sensors or Collision Detector (probably not 0 points in 2e) in their standard kit would be sweet. Who knows.

Here's the thing: B-Wing got a linked barrel roll, and a better dial than 1e (as much better as the T-70 was over the regular X-Wing!), while staying at the same HP. The only thing which got worse on a B-Wing is a shield to a hull, which is likely irrelevant. That's a clear net improvement for the B-Wing. Auzituck and ARC aren't clear improvements. ARC loses the rear-arc focus-to-crit mod, but gains a red barrel roll, with the exact same dial. Mixed bag. Auzituck dial gets a little better (red stop > red 5 straight, but rightly they still lack a flip move), they get a red barrel roll (but have the exact same blues as a B-Wing, and won't gain a focus when they barrel roll), lost a shield, and had reinforce nerfed. That's almost surely a lot weaker than 1e.

The stuff a B-Wing does is *better* than it was in 1e, while the stuff an Auzituck does is *worse*, and an ARC is the same.

But the B-Wing is the ship in trouble?

However, as I've said in other threads, this is an entirely pointless discussion. Until FFG just releases the **** points, none of this means anything.

A big winner is our boi Arvel Crynd. As opposed to being a joke that you slap proton rockets and intimidation with for the ultimate "Don't bump me, lol", he can now recreate ROTJ with his Kamikaze! So now will he not only be a pest to higher initiative ships, but he will actually be viable against lower-ps ships, particularly large or medium based ones. Also, he now has a pseudo-PTL baked in, which his EPT-less standard form lacked.

Ffs, guys

It doesnt matter how good anything else has gotten, the Ewing is THE winner

Because look at where it's coming from

The biggest winner of 2.0 is Iden versio aka Mutombo. Cant wait to wave the finger and say "no no no no no no" when Fenn rolls 5 hits on Howlrunner and Howlrunner blank out on greens.

10 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

I think that's the key thing. The thing that makes wookies zing is Expertise, Predator, or at least Wookie Commandoes. Without that, yes, reinforce makes you tough, but flinging unmodified attack dice means you can't actually kill anything.

Kanan Jarrus might be a good idea, if only to get the force token for shooting...

Yeah for sure. They've lost all their tricks, and a brick wall isn't much good in a fight. It's going to force people to either run force users as you said for small mods, or use the reinforce more sparingly and default to the focus action. This means the Auzitucks will take a lot more damage in 2.0 even with the reduced damage output overall.

9 hours ago, GILLIES291 said:

The biggest loser is the Ghost in my opinion. Went from being one of the top ships in the game to:

...

So all in all several nerfs and no real buffs

Whilst the Ghost has been nerfed overall in 2.0, its still the cheapest 'House Tank' ship in the Rebel roster by quite a bit. The Falcon and Outrider are considerably more expensive from what we've been told, and frankly I would expect to get more when I pay more point wise.

That being said it's still a great ship. The splash that the Reapers Jam has made in 1.0 makes Chopper look pretty enticing in 2.0, especially with his ability's timing being the start of engagement. He's going to be a literal battering ram, and with the HP the Ghost still has, its the perfect ship for it.

Kanan can't use his ability on himself anymore, but he can reinforce. Whilst I think the new reinforce is lacklustre on the wookiees, on a zero agility ship its still great. Kanan can reinforce and block 1 damage to himself from every attack, whilst spending his 2 force tokens to neg attack dice on his allies. Put Ezra in the gunner seat and he has 3 force tokens to utilise.

On the topic of Ezra, you can chain his gunner ability off the Tail Gun shot since its a primary, meaning you can get great coverage in terms of arcs and you still have a double tap, it just won't be a double tap on a single target with a TLT (that's a good thing).

Hera is where the Ghost's mobility comes in. Her ability at I5 is much more useful, coupled with Seasoned navigator or Nien Nunb she has a lot of options to re-adjust with.

Unlike the Wookiee Gunship, the Dev's have made an effort with the Ghost to nerf an overpowered ship but still give it some useful and fun mechanics as a replacement.

9 hours ago, theBitterFig said:

B-Wings have more blues than before, in that they've gotten the 3-straight in addition to their 1e greens, and the only new red are in entirely new 1-Ts. It can be awkward to turn a B-Wing around if you're too close to a large-base ship, but the 1-Ts will make a big difference in that sense--unless you're nearly dead-center, you'll be able to slip one way or another around a large base. 2e HLC kinda needs a barrel roll, and B-Wings are probably one of the only cannon-based ships which is able to barrel roll and get a token. Braylen Stramm seems good for large-ship hunting, in that he can BR into fully modded 4-dice at a reasonable Init.

The stuff a B-Wing does is *better* than it was in 1e, while the stuff an Auzituck does is *worse*, and an ARC is the same.

You make a good point about the B-wings. The only point of contention for me is stress relief. Ten will be a fine, but there's not a lot multiple generic B-wings can utilise to manage the stress. Leia's new version of her crew card is great, but still only works 1 out of 3 turns, and it doesn't help with their linked action at all. I think the generics are going to be much more unwieldy than the uniques regardless of slots. Maybe that is what they were going for?

The Auzituck is definitely worse, I think the ARC-170 will be significantly better though. The medium base makes it much faster, and if it gets the holy trinity combo of gunner/crew/astro it will be a very versatile ship. That is obviously a big IF as you mentioned though, I just wouldn't write the ARC off just yet.

5 hours ago, BVRCH said:

Ten will be a fine, but there's not a lot multiple generic B-wings can utilise to manage the stress

Electronic Baffle, if you're prepared to burn the odd shield.

5 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Electronic Baffle, if you're prepared to burn the odd shield.

Hahaha, true. The if definitely leans toward no for me personally. I'll let my opponent burn its HP down, I'm sure it won't be hard ?

12 hours ago, BVRCH said:

You make a good point about the B-wings. The only point of contention for me is stress relief. Ten will be a fine, but there's not a lot multiple generic B-wings can utilise to manage the stress. Leia's new version of her crew card is great, but still only works 1 out of 3 turns, and it doesn't help with their linked action at all. I think the generics are going to be much more unwieldy than the uniques regardless of slots. Maybe that is what they were going for?

The Auzituck is definitely worse, I think the ARC-170 will be significantly better though. The medium base makes it much faster, and if it gets the holy trinity combo of gunner/crew/astro it will be a very versatile ship. That is obviously a big IF as you mentioned though, I just wouldn't write the ARC off just yet.

I forgot about medium base differences. It'll be interesting to see that play out.

My guess is ARC will have a single slot which could hold either a gunner or crew. Rather, that's how I'd design it, so that's probably more projection than supposition. I'm also guessing the ARC goes up in points a good deal relative to other ships. 1e ARCS are a lot cheaper for what they are than 1e named B-Wing pilots. A generic PS-2 arc would probably be about 24 points, based on Braylen Stramm at 25. So these ships are valued at about 2 points more than B-Wings at 22 points for a PS 2. But Norra and Keyan are the same 29 points at PS 7 with pilot abilities which are about as strong as each other, so Norra is two points cheaper than Keyan ought to be (three! if you count the fact that B-Wings need to pay an extra point for crew), given the quality of the ships and what ought to be the base price of the chassis. That's a huge difference. 1e B-Wing unique pilots are kind of famously overpriced, but I think it's a safe bet that relative prices between ARCs and B-Wings will become better. I'm not so much writing the ARC off (it'll probably be fine), as figuring that it'll pay a fair price for the versatility and double arcs and all the things it gets over what a B-Wing gets.

B-Wing versatility is also unknown, since I don't know if there will be some equivalent to B-Wing E/2 (say, just handled through the slots on the ship in the app) that allows them some sort of crew or gunner. Having one of those plus a system is perhaps not quite as flexible as a droid, but we'll see as time passes and more system upgrades emerge.

As to stress relief, I'm just wondering how that's too different from other ships. An X-Wing dials in a K-Turn, and it has to pull a green next turn, but you do it anyhow for position. I can imagine an early engagement where a few B-Wings focus/barrel roll, then pull one of their greens and maybe just focus, then do some sort of K-Turn or T-Roll the turn after that. Seems like a kinda normal flow for a game. Meanwhile, the ability to get a dice-modification token and also reposition is rare among jousters. For ships which can get a token and a reposition, it's the B-Wing, the E-Wing (wicked expensive), the TIE Punisher (probably expensive since it'll need ordnance), and squishy arc dodger ships. Starviper kinda blurs that line, and I have no idea where it'll fall in pricing.

On 7/26/2018 at 10:05 AM, GILLIES291 said:

The biggest loser is the Ghost in my opinion. Went from being one of the top ships in the game to:

[...]

-losing evade for the new worse reinforce

[...]

Reinforce is a pretty strong buff (and likely accounts for the loss of overall health on the platform). On a 0 Agility ship, new reinforce isn't much different from old reinforce (minus the changes to the coverage), unless the ships attacking you are only generating 1 hit (in which case I think the Ghost player is probably pretty happy anyway?). Against shots with 2+ hits (i.e. most of them), new reinforce does as at least as much as old evade against 1 shot and obviously a lot more if you are being shot multiple times.

55 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

I forgot about medium base differences. It'll be interesting to see that play out.

My guess is ARC will have a single slot which could hold either a gunner or crew. Rather, that's how I'd design it, so that's probably more projection than supposition. I'm also guessing the ARC goes up in points a good deal relative to other ships. 1e ARCS are a lot cheaper for what they are than 1e named B-Wing pilots. A generic PS-2 arc would probably be about 24 points, based on Braylen Stramm at 25. So these ships are valued at about 2 points more than B-Wings at 22 points for a PS 2. But Norra and Keyan are the same 29 points at PS 7 with pilot abilities which are about as strong as each other, so Norra is two points cheaper than Keyan ought to be (three! if you count the fact that B-Wings need to pay an extra point for crew), given the quality of the ships and what ought to be the base price of the chassis. That's a huge difference. 1e B-Wing unique pilots are kind of famously overpriced, but I think it's a safe bet that relative prices between ARCs and B-Wings will become better. I'm not so much writing the ARC off (it'll probably be fine), as figuring that it'll pay a fair price for the versatility and double arcs and all the things it gets over what a B-Wing gets.

B-Wing versatility is also unknown, since I don't know if there will be some equivalent to B-Wing E/2 (say, just handled through the slots on the ship in the app) that allows them some sort of crew or gunner. Having one of those plus a system is perhaps not quite as flexible as a droid, but we'll see as time passes and more system upgrades emerge.

As to stress relief, I'm just wondering how that's too different from other ships. An X-Wing dials in a K-Turn, and it has to pull a green next turn, but you do it anyhow for position. I can imagine an early engagement where a few B-Wings focus/barrel roll, then pull one of their greens and maybe just focus, then do some sort of K-Turn or T-Roll the turn after that. Seems like a kinda normal flow for a game. Meanwhile, the ability to get a dice-modification token and also reposition is rare among jousters. For ships which can get a token and a reposition, it's the B-Wing, the E-Wing (wicked expensive), the TIE Punisher (probably expensive since it'll need ordnance), and squishy arc dodger ships. Starviper kinda blurs that line, and I have no idea where it'll fall in pricing.

I agree with the idea the ARC's will jump up in price. Going to a medium base makes me think it'll be turned into more of a combat support, sort of what I think they tried to do with Thane and Shara in 1.0. With players taking 1 ARC, or maybe 2 at max in a squad, with minimal benefits of taking a third if points allow it. That's why I also think (hope) it might get the trinity of slots. Hopefully it can be run cheaply if scantily clad, but if you deck it out it gets expensive fast. The ARC was supposed to be the most versatile fighter the Republic had, I hope they lean on that with their design in 2.0.

The B-wings dial is half red, that's my issue. It's cool to have a linked action, but you won't be using it very often. It'd be cool to link actions and line up that perfect first engagement, but then it can't turn around. Which might be the Dev's plan, but if so, I'm not a fan, I'll just take an X-wing and it'll do the same thing better. They'd need something more for me to find them valuable in a squad, which is a shame because they're my favourite ship. They don't have a reload which makes me think they won't be ordnance centric. Double cannons like the gunboat might help, or something like that. They'll need more to impress me.

Anyhow! A few B-Wing builds:

Blue Squadron Pilot with Advanced Sensors is 50 points, so about the same as 1e. Collision Detector at 5 points would only leave room for... Hull Upgrade or Tractor Beam? Doesn't seem worth it, but maybe. Could go ColDet + Electronic Baffle.

Blade Squadron Veteran with Heavy Laser Cannon and Predator at 50 points is impressive on paper as a large-base hunter, but 3 Init might be low.

Braylen and Ten Nunb both look well-costed at 50 points before upgrades. Compare to the old Ibtisam and Keyan at 56 and 58 respectively, that's a huge improvement. HLC seems great on Braylen (54 points, for double-mods on a focus-BR action, with potential 4 dice...), and either Advanced Sensors or Fire Control System look good on Ten Nunb. Combine with Elusive? Rerolls on one green aren't amazing, but Ten probably pulls more red moves for easy resets. Probably just wasted points, though.

Another interesting Ten concept: Debris Gambit when you aren't near obstacles.

Muh poor ARC

point costs unchanged for a fatter base, far fewer upgrades that care about its aux arc, and more expensive upgrades like Expert Handling. Seems like the X will constantly kick its *** with lower cost, greater manueverability, and superior pilot abilities

Even Saw comes in at a seemingly obscene 8(!!!!!) points to make Shara fairly unusable. Even preceptive copilot at 10(!!!!) makes potential Garven synergy seem wildly overcosted

poor thing

So the B-Wing prices are right where we thought they’d be... 42 for a Blue, 44 for a Blade, 50 for Braylen or Ten Numb. But seriously... 2 cannon slots, and no crew (yet)? Ugh... Yeah, B-Wings are losers in this edition, unless you want an economically priced cannon-boat. I’m now hoping their v2 repackaging throws them a few bones.

Hlc at 4 seems ridiculously reasonable for Bwings

On 7/25/2018 at 10:22 AM, Hawkstrike said:

Not to mention Wes Janson, Hobbie Klivian, Tarn Mison, and others. Poof.

We need to start a "bring back Tarn" thread.

4 Blues with HLC and FCS seems pretty serviceable to me.

6 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

Hlc at 4 seems ridiculously reasonable for Bwings

Honestly, I feel like Tractors Beams at 3 points are going to be the star here. Now that they can affect Medium and Large ships, they're going to punish the large-ship turret player who just wants to hug the edges of the board.

HLC being locked to a range 2-3 bullseye arc kinda kills them for me, especially now that they can't reroll into crits.

13 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

Hlc at 4 seems ridiculously reasonable for Bwings

HLC is now hyper-restrictive by only being usable in the bullseye arc, AND it turns all crits to hits after the modify step. Anything more than 4 points would have been overcosted, especially for the B-Wings that don’t have nametags. Having played with the Kimogilas enough lately in my main Scum build, I find the Bullseye to be situational at best unless you’re jousting a Large base.

If I run the B-wings after v2, Ion / Tractor will likey be the way I go.

And it's worth emphasizing that B-Wings are the only Rebel ship that are capable of tractoring a target. That's going to be very important for them.

2 minutes ago, PhantomFO said:

And it's worth emphasizing that B-Wings are the only Rebel ship that are capable of tractoring a target. That's going to be very important for them.

Only because they are now the only Rebel ship with access to cannon upgrades. If there’s suddenly a Tractor turret, then Y-Wings will beat them on that part, too.

59 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

Muh poor ARC

point costs unchanged for a fatter base, far fewer upgrades that care about its aux arc, and more expensive upgrades like Expert Handling. Seems like the X will constantly kick its *** with lower cost, greater manueverability, and superior pilot abilities

Even Saw comes in at a seemingly obscene 8(!!!!!) points to make Shara fairly unusable. Even preceptive copilot at 10(!!!!) makes potential Garven synergy seem wildly overcosted

poor thing

Maybe if they add a Republic faction the ship will get more love.

41 minutes ago, It’s One Of Ours said:

Only because they are now the only Rebel ship with access to cannon upgrades. If there’s suddenly a Tractor turret, then Y-Wings will beat them on that part, too.

So that explains why the B-Wings just disappeared in ROTJ, they all decided to go back and fly Y-Wings.