Neither the reaper, bomber, nor aggressor get linked focus. In fact, very few imperial ships do. ****, bombers have linked Target Lock so palp's kinda perfect there

The bomber and aggressor need focus for barrage and/or kestal (rhymer can also use palp to mod his adv torpedoes). Forcus can be used defensively, unless you get really lucky or unlucky or just never get shot. At 2 agi + potential Elusive, you WILL roll green focus eventually

They also don't have mods that used to turn blanks into results. There will also be times where they simply cannot get access to focus tokens

Having played heaps of barrage bombers and kestal, I can say conclusively that more "focus" is not a bad thing unless it ends up overloading a fragile ship

Palp does not, therefore is good ?

Agreed. A cheap partial focus that any of the squad can draw on is always good. Palpatine isn't devastating but he's certainly worth his cost; he doesn't affect blanks anymore but he's also not something you have to pre-commit anymore either.

On a related note, talking about fifth brother specifically - whilst relatively few ships want to carry the man with the hat, he does interact with Palpatine even better than most ships:

Quote

While you perform an attack, you may spend 1 force to change 1 of your focus results to a critical hit result.

Quote

While another friendly ship defends or performs an attack, you may spend 1 force to modify 1 of its dice as though that ship had spent 1 force.

Unlike most potential squadmates, a ship with fifth brother can use Palpatine's force token specifically to trigger fifth brother's ability, not just for it's generic use. That's probably a pretty niche option in practice (maybe a punisher with cluster missiles?) but worth noting.

15 hours ago, RStan said:

Correct, but force users like Grand Inquisitor will eat through his Force charges fast with Supernatural Reflexes and his ability, so giving him another source of force is probably very good for him at least.

I’ve been thinking about the Grand Inquisitor and that he probably isn’t a sniper anymore. It’s probably better to try and hit range 1, prefably out of arc and never have to use his ability at all so you are just powering Supernatural boost or roll into focus and then blue move action evade. If you can’t avoid arc then you have the ability to take away their range bonus.

I haven’t had enough practise with this new guy yet to know if it works. I do feel like mods are probably better than increasing his attack. Very different to the old reliable snipe 3 hits of 1.0.

1 hour ago, DodgingArcs said:

are just powering Supernatural boost or roll into focus and then blue move action evade

Does not, I'm afraid, work. Supernatural Reflexes lets you perform a boost or barrel roll action, as a direct effect from that upgrade card.

It does not cause you to use the boost or barrel roll action on your action bar - indeed you can do so even if you don't have that action on your bar - and therefore you can't use any linked action options the boost on your action bar might have.

Autothrusters - which trigger "when you perform an action" would trigger - if there were to be a force talent capable TIE interceptor (Carnor Jax?) because that's not specifically relying on an action from the action bar.

26 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Does not, I'm afraid, work. Supernatural Reflexes lets you perform a boost or barrel roll action, as a direct effect from that upgrade card.

It does not cause you to use the boost or barrel roll action on your action bar - indeed you can do so even if you don't have that action on your bar - and therefore you can't use any linked action options the boost on your action bar might have.

Autothrusters - which trigger "when you perform an action" would trigger - if there were to be a force talent capable TIE interceptor (Carnor Jax?) because that's not specifically relying on an action from the action bar.

I’m pretty sure that is incorrect.

• A linked action can be performed after performing the action it is attached to even if that action was granted by a card effect or other game effect.

10 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Does not, I'm afraid, work. Supernatural Reflexes lets you perform a boost or barrel roll action, as a direct effect from that upgrade card.

It does not cause you to use the boost or barrel roll action on your action bar - indeed you can do so even if you don't have that action on your bar - and therefore you can't use any linked action options the boost on your action bar might have.

Autothrusters - which trigger "when you perform an action" would trigger - if there were to be a force talent capable TIE interceptor (Carnor Jax?) because that's not specifically relying on an action from the action bar.

From the rules reference, pg12 linked actions

“A linked action can be performed after performing the action it is attached to even if that action was granted by a card effect or other game effect.”

It definitely works. Currently the only pilots that can take advantage of it from Supernatural Reflexes are TIE Advanced v1 Force Users, Ezra in the Attack Shuttle and Darth Vader because they chain the reposition into focus (or evade in Ezra’s case). Luke with S-Foils closed chains the focus into boost so he can’t do it. Assaj can’t take Supernatural.

Hey how do you think this would do for a crew carrier?

Same price as a 1.0 upsilon but harder to get in arc, faster to turn, better able to fight in general.

Of course your 1 piece of valuable cargo needs to be pretty integral to your list to warrant this.

Worth it? Or not.

Probably not

Feroph is nice, but like everything he BURNS

Any durability upgrade above his ability will probably end up redundant. Better leave as cheap as possible

Oh well. Part of me wanted that choice you'd inevitably have to make between opting to regen elusive or use Tua. But it's probably not all that efficient and doesn't synergise well.

Now I'm thinking of elusive regenning by stress token. Oh gahd.

24 minutes ago, Prosk_019 said:

Hey how do you think this would do for a crew carrier?

Captain Feroph — TIE Reaper	47
Elusive	3
Minister Tua	7
Hull Upgrade	3
Ship Total: 60

Same price as a 1.0 upsilon but harder to get in arc, faster to turn, better able to fight in general.

Of course your 1 piece of valuable cargo needs to be pretty integral to your list to warrant this.

Worth it? Or not.

I've bolded the part I'm concerned about. All these things are true for the TIE reaper, but you lose them as soon as you put Minister Tua onboard because then you're stressed every turn - turning off your Ailerons and preventing Segnor's Loops. You could choose not to activate her, but then she's not giving you value for her cost because Minister Tua doesn't activate until you are damaged, so best case scenario, you have 6 hull left at the start of the next engagement phase.

From my point of view, Captain Feroph is best used as a support ship that would be target #1, but the ability gives some extra defense. Something like Emperor Palpatine or Admiral Sloane works well with the defensive pilot ability.

Yeah I guess I was too concerned with what the build could do rather than what it would end up doing.

Perhaps a case could be made for the first round or so of engagement, when there's no hull damage yet.

Of course, you'd need tons of luck and skill for that.

Reaper's a weird ship to get a grip on because ailerons double move + medium bases often spells disaster

I think minimum upgrades (+ potential composure if you ever want to jam) is necessary to offset the complexity of just manuevering the **** thing

So far definitely a fan of Vader (+ 0-0-0) Vermeil, still gotta try Palp but looking forward

Just so I know, does Composure keep coming up because we're afraid of losing actions by misestimating Range 1 for Jam, or is there something I'm missing?

6 minutes ago, Biophysical said:

Just so I know, does Composure keep coming up because we're afraid of losing actions by misestimating Range 1 for Jam, or is there something I'm missing?

Not missing anything, except successful jam actions. Range 1 is very easy to overestimate

2 points seems fair for not utterly screwing yourself over

3 hours ago, ficklegreendice said:

Not missing anything, except successful jam actions. Range 1 is very easy to overestimate

2 points seems fair for not utterly screwing yourself over

Also, what else are you going to put on them?

On 8/22/2018 at 9:59 AM, Magnus Grendel said:

I'm not convinced by this one:

1. Vizier already has access to a white co-ordinate via his ability. I know you have to have white co-ordinate on your action bar to field Ceina Ree, ...

I'm probably misinterpreting the Ciena Ree card, but the requirement for it is "Imperial coordinate action". It doesn't specify the colour of the action.

Doesn't this mean that you can have Ciena on a reaper without a tactical officer?

16 minutes ago, Warzgaroth said:

I'm probably misinterpreting the Ciena Ree card, but the requirement for it is "Imperial coordinate action". It doesn't specify the colour of the action.

Doesn't this mean that you can have Ciena on a reaper without a tactical officer?

It does specify a colour (the icon is white). Compare engine upgrade:

Really?

I'm looling at the card with http://infinitearenas.com/xw2browse/# and there the icon is black.

Currently trying out Reaper builds in sim so I thought I'd necro this, now we're a bit further along. Is there anything new to add to what's already been said? Seems like a lot of ways to run this ship.

For context, the current list I'm looking at... Although the upgrades are probably a little wacky at this stage. Many options.

TIE/ag Aggressor - •Lieutenant Kestal - 42
•Lieutenant Kestal - Innate Deadeye (36)
Barrage Rockets (6)

TIE Reaper - •Major Vermeil - 54
•Major Vermeil - Veteran of Scarif (49)
Intimidation (3)
Tactical Officer (2)

TIE/ph Phantom - •“Echo” - 64
•“Echo” - Slippery Trickster (50)
Outmaneuver (6)
Fire-Control System (3)
•Director Krennic (5)

TIE/sa Bomber - •Major Rhymer - 40
•Major Rhymer - Scimitar Leader (34)
Adv. Proton Torpedoes (6)

Total: 200/200

I've not come up with a major plan yet, they need to go on a table for that to become clear. But there is some interactions here.

Kestal maybe gets optimised. If Echo can sneak into R3, stay cloaked and grab the TL for her. Vermeil throws a focus to Rhymer for double mods, making him a big target. Vermeil goes up front for a block if moving 2nd, makes everything we can throw even more painful. Otherwise, he blocks on the follow up to make Echo's Outmanoeuvre hurt even more, while the other 2 fighters attempt to set up their 2nd engagement. Vermeils matching Init makes for some flexible coord.

All depending on what survives the alpha

But like I say, I don't exactly know how this plays out, so there are a lot of other ways to go. Echo can be made an independent flanker for eg. Vermeil could be dropped to a SBP.... Or loaded with Vader. Or Palp....

Also looking at running it with Rexler and Echo, which may look very different.