So there is always moaning about the VSD and I don't want to start the whole debate again.

I just had a quick and easy idea that might make the VSD a little bit more popular with just a simple errata.

Change the wording on Dominator from:

"While attacking at close-medium range, you may spend up to 2 shields from any of your hull zones to add the same number of blue dice to your attack pool."

to:

"While attacking you may spend up to 2 shields from any of your hull zones to add that number of blue dice to the attacking arcs battery armament for this attack."

That way the Dominator dice would synergize with DCaps.

It seems FFG does not want to give this ship better movement. Instead they lean into its strengths and improve on that. Which they did by adding DCaps. My idea would directly embrace this approach.

Dominator would be a fun title if it didn't cost 12 points.

Hoping for a "buff" errata from FFG for an uniconic and old ship just seems pretty pie-in-the-sky. I'm sure we could all spitball a few dozen erratas that would improve the state of the game by empowering some underutilized stuff, but it's never been FFG's modus operandi in the past to issue errata to make something better (only to reign in stuff that was too disruptively powerful), and given the level of nurturing attention they've had for Armada recently... it's highly unlikely they'd start now...


EDIT: That said, your suggestion for Dominator would have been pretty fun. Still probably wouldn't be worth 12 points, but it'd at least be slightly more useful.

11 minutes ago, duck_bird said:

Dominator would be a fun title if it didn't cost 12 points.

Well I think it would help if they dropped the price to 10 or even 8 but FFG has never made point cost errata. They have however made text changes.

9 minutes ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

Hoping for a "buff" errata from FFG for an uniconic and old ship just seems pretty pie-in-the-sky. I'm sure we could all spitball a few dozen erratas that would improve the state of the game by empowering some underutilized stuff, but it's never been FFG's modus operandi in the past to issue errata to make something better (only to reign in stuff that was too disruptively powerful), and given the level of nurturing attention they've had for Armada recently... it's highly unlikely they'd start now...

I think you a right. They clearly showed some intent to improve the VSD by adding DCaps. Though errataing (errating?... whatever) cards is kinda poor form. So I guess they would want to keep that to the absolute minimum. Which means only changing truly broken cards.

I still think this is a fun idea we might want keep in mind for some future homebrew community errata.

A Warlord VSD 1 with External Racks, Tua, ECM, (and Captain Jonus beside it) did a number on my ISD on Saturday. I underestimated how much damage it could do, and it killed my ISD just before my squards could finish the rest of his squads and kill his 2 gladiators. The game ended in a 6-5 for me, but I came out of it with a lot of respect for VSDs again.

I could see a krennic gunnery quad vsd being useful with thrawn?

I've been toying with the idea of a VSD-1 with Pryce, BTs and External Racks under Vader. 86 points is pretty cheap.

For all out assault /Hyperspace assault

Dominator

Intel officer

Oe

Rapid Reload

Xi7

Concentrate fire and you're only one dice shy of a double Isd arc each turn.

Just no good in a standard 400 format...

My feeling is vsds now have a number of good options. For what they are they are respecable enough as a discrete ship but they could use a bit of a points break.

But they remain horribly vulnerable to a lot of popular ship or squad combos.

The meta at present is very hard on medium ships. They lose on activations and they cant compete with the sheer threat of a bt avenger or a decked out ordnance cruiser. You cant take a vsd/assault frigate and for the points saved add enough squads or other stuff to match the real killers.

1 hour ago, Ophion said:

My feeling is vsds now have a number of good options. For what they are they are respecable enough as a discrete ship but they could use a bit of a points break.

For VSD 2 options I agree, more so than the 1.

I’m torn. I like that each ship has a deficiency of some kind but manoeuvre & speed is so key, the VSD is really unforgiving of mistakes (especially for new players).

I think maybe 5 points could come off the VSD 1 cost.