Is this action any good? It seems really weird to me that I can standby with a unit that has a range 1-3 gun, but if I standby o can only shoot at range 1-2. Has anyone tried extending the range of standby at all? I'm thinking of trying it to see how it plays, as range 1-2 just seems horrible honestly.

It is pretty terrible most of the time. Way too situational, way too easy to play around.

It's one of the least used actions. It's good for when you don't know what else to do sometimes. It may become more utilitarian as more stuff is released. If you are very canny I think it can be devastating but most of us aren't that good.

They are extremely finicky, but have their uses. I think that the more LOS blocking terrain you're playing with, the better they are. On the turrets, the standby is much better as most units can't shoot at range 4 without significantly weakening the attack

I oftenly use it. And I ofently win.

I think it is a pretty strong action. Do not forget that with stand by, you can do a move too.

We just had this discussion over in the new player thread.

I think it is generally the least useful action, but it comes up big in rare circumstances. The fact that it is so situational makes it less valuable in my opinion, as an aim or a dodge is almost always better due to the variety of game-states where they are useful. As I mentioned in the other thread: how often do you standby versus aiming or dodging? I personally aim or dodge on almost every round with at least one unit, and I sometimes go entire games without using standby. To me, that makes the standby token the least useful action. The utility of dodge and aim make them much more valuable to me, and not by a small amount.

That said, on cramped maps with corner camping and objective overwatch situations standby becomes much, much better. It will also be much stronger if the new overwatch upgrade does in fact give sentinel.

My general thinking on the matter is this: if you have sentinel, standby is a very good action in many circumstances. If you don't, it is rarely a good action to take. It is simply too easy for your opponent to play around, as the range restriction is pretty severe in most cases.

It has it's uses, but rarely worth it. It can however be important depending on objectives and deployment.

The first few games I played, I consistently used Standby in the wrong situations and paid the price. It did not take long to learn when not to use Standby.

Obviously, actions like Move, Attack are used extensively each game. Dodge and Aim are used slightly less. The reason for this is it is far easier to recognize a situation where a Move is your best choice or Dodging is important because you can see a unit is undoubtedly going to be Attacked (a no brainer decision for the other player, too). It’s harder to recognize the situations where Standby is the most advantageous action to take.

The frequency of an action’s use does not really mean it is a good or terrible action. The game is much more about recognizing situations. If the right situation presented itself, you wouldn’t say, “Well, I’m not going to Standby - that’s a terrible action.”

It's handy for setting up ambushes with Cumbersome weapons. Move into position with a covered field of fire and stand by -- set up right your opponent can't suppress you to remove the token and you can still engage despite having moved. If the ambush does not go off it means you shut down that avenue of approach.

I suspect it's the only way to make E-webs effective, but since I've only got one game in using E-webs (and one game against them) I'm not sure. It might be nothing makes E-webs effective.

Sometimes i used overwatch in vader to negate the enemy advance. This is cause relentless: move+ attack if you come into range 2 .

10 hours ago, smickletz said:

The first few games I played, I consistently used Standby in the wrong situations and paid the price. It did not take long to learn when not to use Standby.

Obviously, actions like Move, Attack are used extensively each game. Dodge and Aim are used slightly less. The reason for this is it is far easier to recognize a situation where a Move is your best choice or Dodging is important because you can see a unit is undoubtedly going to be Attacked (a no brainer decision for the other player, too). It’s harder to recognize the situations where Standby is the most advantageous action to take.

The frequency of an action’s use does not really mean it is a good or terrible action. The game is much more about recognizing situations. If the right situation presented itself, you wouldn’t say, “Well, I’m not going to Standby - that’s a terrible action.”

Yes, exactly all of this! Especially the last paragraph.

Honestly, I find the efforts to rank or compare actions in terms of utility entirely fruitless. Rather, one should try to understand what the utility of each action actually is and under which situations you would want to use them. A good chess player doesn’t say “en passant is a horrible move because it’s rarely used”, they ask “when should I use en passant?”.

As @smickletz said, move and attack are actions where the utility and situations are obvious. I argue that this is because you are entirely in control of the action’s utility and they resolve immediately. Standby is an action that requires foresight and, yes, relinquishing some agency over to your opponent. This is why the situations may be difficult to grasp or create for beginners. You have to be able to predict the game state a few activations into the future.

Just a couple situations where standby’s utility can be fairly obvious: Luke and fleet troopers only have range 2 guns, so standby can be great against them. Speeders’ movements can be predictable and you can set up ambushes against them as they try to fly over LOS-blocking terrain toward you.

Other beneficial situations may be less obvious because they involve multiple moving parts, and you may not resolve the full effect of your standby. If your opponent shoots you to remove your standby, that might be perfectly fine if it means they had to divert a unit away from their actual goal.

This is all congruent with my thinking on standby. What are thoughts on houseruling the standby range to 1-3? Or to the range of the weapon? How would this alter gameplay. Would it improve? Get worse? How come?

10 minutes ago, flipperoverlord said:

This is all congruent with my thinking on standby. What are thoughts on houseruling the standby range to 1-3? Or to the range of the weapon? How would this alter gameplay. Would it improve? Get worse? How come?

Your house your rules, but I think it’s a mistake. Somewhat ruins the value of sentinel keyword on the turrets/eweb if you do that.

I suspect there will be ways to alter standby in future expansions.

14 minutes ago, flipperoverlord said:

What are thoughts on houseruling the standby range to 1-3? Or to the range of the weapon? How would this alter gameplay. Would it improve? Get worse? How come?

You should play with your friends the way you all agree to, but I think it's a knee-jerk reaction and a serious mistake to change rules in a game this complex without fully comprehending all of the nuances and interlocking parts. I suggest your creative power is better put to understanding how to best utilize the action as written.

1 hour ago, Turan said:

You should play with your friends the way you all agree to, but I think it's a knee-jerk reaction and a serious mistake to change rules in a game this complex without fully comprehending all of the nuances and interlocking parts. I suggest your creative power is better put to understanding how to best utilize the action as written.

With respect, my question is inquiring what people's thoughts are on how this change would impact the game for the better or worse. I don't really care how you or others "think" I should play the game, but how others think this rule change would change things, and why.

Thanks!

1 hour ago, ScummyRebel said:

Your house your rules, but I think it’s a mistake. Somewhat ruins the value of sentinel keyword on the turrets/eweb if you do that.

I suspect there will be ways to alter standby in future expansions.

Yes, I would need to modify the sentinel keyword to make room for this rule. That is a definite downside. How do we think engagements would play out? How else is general balance effected. More comments like ScummyRebel, here 🙂

3 minutes ago, flipperoverlord said:

Yes, I would need to modify the sentinel keyword to make room for this rule. That is a definite downside. How do we think engagements would play out? How else is general balance effected. More comments like ScummyRebel, here 🙂

Well, one big thing you change is the dynamic of “no go” zones around objectives. You can now camp just anyone at an objective, and with troopers not being arc-locked you’ve created a big zone of “can’t approach without being shot” that otherwise doesn’t exist in the game. With loads of Los blocking terrain it may not matter, but for more open games you’ve now created a bigger danger zone where most units cannot engage the standby unit without the standby shooting them up first. Under current rules, you can set that up still situationally but it’s harder to do so, thus balance.

I think that in your homegrown game with the extended standby, if terrain permits it you’ll see an increase in range 4+ weapon usage - snipers, atst mortar, DLTs, anything to basically back up the range and get the same effect most r1-3 guns have at 3 over standby normally. Game play goes the same, just with backed up range.

2 minutes ago, ScummyRebel said:

Well, one big thing you change is the dynamic of “no go” zones around objectives. You can now camp just anyone at an objective, and with troopers not being arc-locked you’ve created a big zone of “can’t approach without being shot” that otherwise doesn’t exist in the game. With loads of Los blocking terrain it may not matter, but for more open games you’ve now created a bigger danger zone where most units cannot engage the standby unit without the standby shooting them up first. Under current rules, you can set that up still situationally but it’s harder to do so, thus balance.

I think that in your homegrown game with the extended standby, if terrain permits it you’ll see an increase in range 4+ weapon usage - snipers, atst mortar, DLTs, anything to basically back up the range and get the same effect most r1-3 guns have at 3 over standby normally. Game play goes the same, just with backed up range.

I appreciate that analysis. I think you are probably correct on most of your points. I play with a measured out 25% terrain of varrying heights, so lots of LOS blocking.

I see the purpose of the standby action stretgically is to reward a player who moves into a strategically advantageous position first, and wants to be able to respond to a threat that comes in the future. The nature of standby means that it is not very valuable (barring some misdirection purposes, but I'm illusttating a point, here) if I move a unit, then standby, if there is an ennemy unit that can, as their first action, attack my unit and remove it's standby.

The value of standby, is getting to position significantly ahead of your opponent, being out of range of shots, and hunkering down, so that encroaching units pay a price for being slow to get there.

A range 1-2 standby fails to accomplish my perceived strategic relevance of standby oulines above, because most units shoot at range 1-3, so moving into position, then using standby is usually tactically poor, which I'm not sure that it should be.

Here's another question: does the game get better or worse if standby is increased to 1-3, and why?

1 hour ago, flipperoverlord said:

The value of standby, is getting to position significantly ahead of your opponent, being out of range of shots, and hunkering down, so that encroaching units pay a price for being slow to get there.

A range 1-2 standby fails to accomplish my perceived strategic relevance of standby oulines above, because most units shoot at range 1-3, so moving into position, then using standby is usually tactically poor, which I'm not sure that it should be.

Here's another question: does the game get better or worse if standby is increased to 1-3, and why?

I think it becomes better for imperial players and worse for rebel ones, but only because imperials hve more readily available options for the range 4+ shooting than Rebels do.

I get what you’re trying to accomplish with standby, and how it could be frustrating to have units camp out of your range 1-2 and plink at you. At the same time, I think the tactics would always be the same at whatever range you set unless you make standby a universal response option, which I think is extreme and potentially game breaking.

I would try to pick my troop placement to maximize standby effectiveness and minimize shots on them without breaking the standby bubble. Rules as written today that’s 1-2 without sentinel. I think that it’s more how you use it, because changing the mechanic just changes how far away folks are trying to do the same exact strategies.

10 minutes ago, ScummyRebel said:

I think it becomes better for imperial players and worse for rebel ones, but only because imperials hve more readily available options for the range 4+ shooting than Rebels do.

I get what you’re trying to accomplish with standby, and how it could be frustrating to have units camp out of your range 1-2 and plink at you. At the same time, I think the tactics would always be the same at whatever range you set unless you make standby a universal response option, which I think is extreme and potentially game breaking.

I would try to pick my troop placement to maximize standby effectiveness and minimize shots on them without breaking the standby bubble. Rules as written today that’s 1-2 without sentinel. I think that it’s more how you use it, because changing the mechanic just changes how far away folks are trying to do the same exact strategies.

Great points. Well thought out.

Just a thought experiment:

Standby works at all ranges. You said it would be game breaking, and I can think of some aspects of that. How do you think it would break? (This isn't a "challenge" ... Just a thought experiment)

The main reason Standby is a weak action (very weak) is due to losing the Standby token when you gains a suppression token. This was made infinitely worse when snipers were released.

Standby, even with range 1-3 on turrets and the upcoming Overwatch upgrade, was bad before snipers. Now, with snipers, and most players using 1-3 units of them, Standby is useless.

Standby would be much more usable with the removal of the token from gaining a suppression token,

16 minutes ago, Thraug said:

The main reason Standby is a weak action (very weak) is due to losing the Standby token when you gains a suppression token. This was made infinitely worse when snipers were released.

Standby, even with range 1-3 on turrets and the upcoming Overwatch upgrade, was bad before snipers. Now, with snipers, and most players using 1-3 units of them, Standby is useless.

What overwatch upgrade? Also as ive mentioned in another topic i would experiment with the removal of standby. I will test out the varian when you only remove standby token when your unit has gaineda supression token and that token equals units courage value (supresses them in a way that they lose actions). Sure it could still be removed but would need more resources from your oponent than single dlt shot on certain units (pathfinders, guards, death troopers, wookies, cannons)

15 minutes ago, Thraug said:

Standby would be much more usable with the removal of the token from gaining a suppression token,

I bet there will be an exhaustable upgrade that says “If you would receive a suppression token, instead you may exhaust this card and put up to X suppression tokens on it instead. At the end of your next activation put all suppression tokens on this card onto the unit” Similar to emergency stims.

Without a limit, not removing Standby tokens for Suppression would be way overpowered. The only reason it’s frustrating is removing the token messes up what, otherwise, would have been a perfect plan.

12 minutes ago, Warlordus said:

What overwatch upgrade?

In the Pathfinders and Deathtroopers. You see art of some snipers and the letters "Ove". Overwatch is the assumed name. If grants a single keyword, but the details are unknown. Many people (myself included) feel the most logical choice is Sentinel, but at the moment that's not a guarantee.