Why the only ship of 1.0 who had to turn its arc with an action, now has 1 fewer attack die and lacks one of the most useful slots in this edition for this kind of primary weapon? I don't get it.

canonically, it never had a gunner

it's a one-pilot ship with a remote controlled turret

for gameplay, I think they overtuned the shadowcaster based on how dominant Asajj was in the previous edition

Asajj seems a bit expensive in 2.0 but as a force user that is consistent with Luke and Vader. Because Shadowcaster cannot use supernatural reflexes (only sml ships) Assaj is somewhat left in the cold.

base cost of 84pts is a lot. Add on some upgrades to really make her hum and ur around 95-100pts. Assaj is one of those 2.0 pilots that isnt quite good enough for her cost without upgrades and eats too many opf ur points with upgrades. 2.0 allows the generic ships to shine again. I wonder what Asajj would cost without the force power?

14 minutes ago, Da_Brown_Bomber said:

Asajj seems a bit expensive in 2.0 but as a force user that is consistent with Luke and Vader. Because Shadowcaster cannot use supernatural reflexes (only sml ships) Assaj is somewhat left in the cold.

base cost of 84pts is a lot. Add on some upgrades to really make her hum and ur around 95-100pts. Assaj is one of those 2.0 pilots that isnt quite good enough for her cost without upgrades and eats too many opf ur points with upgrades. 2.0 allows the generic ships to shine again. I wonder what Asajj would cost without the force power?

I haven't used the Lancer, but has anyone tried Heightened Perception with Asajj? I get that it is sub optimal on small bases (Supernatural Reflexes, or Instinctive Aim less often, being the go to) but at 3 pts it gives a nice option for using her to hurt aces before they can shoot. Height Per + Shadow caster does bring her up to 93 pts, but being able to shoot first and toss a small base ace into a debris cloud or asteroid before they can shoot could be very useful. Maybe add Ketsu crew to likely prolong the green die reduction from the Shadowcaster Tractor token (98 pts total) or set up a Med base for a toss next turn.

I'm assuming Asajj doesn't have a gunner slot because of BT-1 and Dengar, which would otherwise be really good on her.

She can't use Supernatural Reflexes, but a Force rating of 2 makes her less dependent on the Focus action. It's really the low damage on the turret for the cost, paired with an inflexible dial for an arc-dependent ship. It's now in the same spot that the Firespray was in 1.0.

maybe shadowcaster title should have added an extra damage dice to forward arc like moldy crow.

or title could add a crew slot but take away something else. eg swap out upgrade slot?

As much as I would like a gunner slot on the caster I think VTG in combination with heightened perception and the title would make it crazy. All arcs forward for 2 attacks at I7 and both handing out tractor AND a stress with Asajj...

1 minute ago, intoxicatedALF said:

As much as I would like a gunner slot on the caster I think VTG in combination with heightened perception and the title would make it crazy. All arcs forward for 2 attacks at I7 and both handing out tractor AND a stress with Asajj...

/sigh. Han gunner on any YT-2400 + Roark... If anything the exclusion of the gunner slot on the 3 forward primary turret ships is, from a gameplay perspective, meant to not tread on that combo's gameplay space or Kavil's capabilities (without Heightened Perception in reference to Kavil, though pairing him with Mux can have a similar result against a single target).

Assaj, Zuckuss crew. 87 points, and off you go.

The pilot controls the turret. That’s why it originally had the rotate action.

Honestly, the base Asajj "package" is quite potent and I can definitely understand the reservations ffg had with her

Just having the force itself is strong, to say nothing of her VERY decent ability + Latz (which doesn't always need her ability to trigger, since people might actually do red manuevers and linked actions in second Ed)

Course they probably went a tad too far, but I DO understand it (contrast with the jm5k's current state...)

23 hours ago, ficklegreendice said:

canonically, it never had a gunner

it's a one-pilot ship with a remote controlled turret

for gameplay, I think they overtuned the shadowcaster based on how dominant Asajj was in the previous edition

To be fair, canonically, the BTL-A4 doesn't have one either.

On 10/20/2018 at 1:00 PM, Flaren48 said:

...and lacks one of the most useful slots in this edition ...

Well, I certainly disagree here, as I'm getting the impression that the Gunner slot is one of the most useless in this edition, aside from Scum Han who is easily undercosted by quite a few points.

22 minutes ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

Well, I certainly disagree here, as I'm getting the impression that the Gunner slot is one of the most useless in this edition, aside from Scum Han who is easily undercosted by quite a few points.

And it's a Scum ship so... Also every pilot except Ketsu has an arc based ability, so don't forget to quote the entire line: lacks one of the most useful slots in this edition for this kind of primary weapon

I mean, gunner Han on a ship with that much blue on its dial?

Yeah, wasn't EVER gonna happen

1 minute ago, ficklegreendice said:

I mean, gunner Han on a ship with that much blue on its dial?

Yeah, wasn't EVER gonna happen

As a side note, IMO that's one of the problems with the Lancer: a lot of blue moves, but not able to get much use out of them.

Just kturn, plenty of use then! Thing's basically a jousters anyway, given no linked rotate + mobile arc only abilities + title

Or use maul crew (good on Sabine ? )

Fearless + maul + title Sabine is fairly nasty, esp if you're evil and pair her with Mux to ruin people using the caster title

35 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

I mean, gunner Han on a ship with that much blue on its dial?

Yeah, wasn't EVER gonna happen

Y-Wing + R4. 1 less blue, can take Han Gunner...

58 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

Just kturn, plenty of use then! Thing's basically a jousters anyway, given no linked rotate + mobile arc only abilities + title

Or use maul crew (good on Sabine ? )

Fearless + maul + title Sabine is fairly nasty, esp if you're evil and pair her with Mux to ruin people using the caster title

Fearless Maul Sabine is 84 points. 0-0-0 Han Marauder Boba Fett is only 6 points more and vastly superior.

Maul is ridiculously overcosted for what it does IMO.

1 hour ago, Hiemfire said:

Y-Wing + R4. 1 less blue, can take Han Gunner...

It's also a Y-wing...

24 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

It's also a Y-wing...

Your comment was about the quantity of blue on the dial. The Y-Wing out guns and out maneuvers the Lancer with the same 64pt cost of the generic Lancer without being a 2 green large base. Lancer has straight line speed and 2 hp on it aside from the extra green... The Y-Wing is the better investment in a squad.

The Lancer is a strange beast. Honestly I don't think FFG really knew what to do with it. It moves like an enormous interceptor, except it has no linked actions and no repositioning. It has a turret, but no gunner, and its abilities typically force the turret and the main gun to overlap anyway. It's huge, bigger than an YT and about on par with a Decimator, but for some reason has less room for crew than a Lambda. I think it's almost playable though. With some more interesting crew (and ideally another slot), maybe an ilicit or a mod, plus a slight points decrease, I think it could be fine. The ability to just hand out stress and tractor beam tokens is very strong, and I think it could potentially be a sleeper if people are unprepared for it.

I'm gonna keep playing it and put a little sticker on the pilot card whenever Ketsu slams into some squirrely ace, puts him on a rock and hits him with four dice.

Every single turreted large base ship is overcosted right now (bar the Scum Falcon). I think they were extremely worried about the 1.0 fat turrets returning and priced them as such to deter that archetype. I appreciate their wariness, but its clear these ships are costed too high to be usable and I would not be surprised if all of them are tweaked in the first re-balance.

In the case of the Shadowcaster they could potentially mess around with the upgrade slots, the ship didn't have a gunner, but its mechanics > fluff in my books if the ship is suffering.

The future issue with I think the devs have with the Shadowcaster is Asajj and how potentially strong she can be with any sort of minor tweaking to the chassis. That being said; the utility that is built into the turret arc of the Shadowcaster gives it an auxiliary purpose with all its pilots. That means that even though its attack is relatively weak, it can still be useful and could be abused fairly easily if not managed accordingly.

What I mean to say is the other ships with turret arcs and no gunners are like that to stop auxiliary effects from being too easy to trigger. Case in point is the HWK-290; with all of its abilities utilizing the arc, it would be an absolute nightmare if it had access to agile gunner for example, allowing it to rotate its arc for no cost. They also both have a solid forward primary arc (with the title for the HWK), and veteran turret gunner could make the double tap a lot more potent than it is on say a Y-wing with its 2 dice primary and secondary turret stats. The Y-wing also has to pay for a turret in addition to VTG in order for that combo to even arise.

If the Shadowcaster gained a gunner, it not only would have a decent double tap with VTG, but would allow the title to trigger twice, a situation the devs will probably want to avoid entirely (especially with Ketsu). Asajj having 2 force tokens means she can also modify both shots if she doesn't use her ability.

BT-1 and Dengar similarly would be very strong on Asajj, with BT-1 allowing her to not only deal stress but then dish out crits on top of that. Asajj with Dengar put the opponent in a lose-lose scenario whereby they need to take stress to keep their tokens, only for Dengar to take it anyway, and all of this could happen before they get to engage if Asajj has Heightened Perception.

Heightened Perception also allows Greedo to work with no negative, which means he becomes extremely efficient on Asajj, and increasing his cost to balance with Asajj means he will be overcosted on any other ship.

Han gunner is another potential issue, giving the Shadowcaster access to the focus/evade token combo that is dangerously close to the glitterstim combo of 1e. Couple that with Asajj's force count and the effectiveness of Lattz Razzi, we could right back where we were in 1e with time warp Asajj. Sabine would similarly guarantee a modifier for her ability if she is able to rotate her arc with her normal action and gain the needed focus from Han gunner.

Anyway that is my very long winded analysis of why I think the devs decided not to give the caster a gunner, and why it could be dangerous to do so in the future. I think they will instead lower the cost of the caster pilots to make it more usable than trying to mess with additional upgrade slots.

tbh I reckon it'd still suck at its current price even if it had a gunner slot

2 hours ago, gadwag said:

tbh I reckon it'd still suck at its current price even if it had a gunner slot

With a gunner slot it'd be worth that price.