Podcasters and forum posters are so excited about Vulture Droids being able to land on rocks and create stationary turrets that the opponent has to fly into.

I'm confused, because for the 6 years that I've played X-Wing, this was called fortressing. It's even got perks over regular fortressing because these ships can still take their action and even rotate their arcs when needed. The only difference is that you do it range 2 away from your board edge and in clusters of 2 ships that are range 1 away from each other (a player gets to deploy a minimum of 3 rocks right next to their deployment zone), and you can even throw a 3rd or 4th or 5th ship in behind them that just bump into the stationary ships in front of them, and as long as one vulture is doing donuts in the deployment zone it's legal. And for some reason a ship that's standing still on an obstacle gets to roll it's normal agility value.

I know that there will be easy ways to counter this, it won't be overpowered, blah blah, yes. I learned how to beat a fortressing player back in Wave 2 (sorry, the real Wave 2 ), when people discovered they could fly 2 Gunnered Falcons into each other and never move. But regular fortressing wasn't actually overpowered, and that's not why it was a problem. It was just a boring way to play a game that's supposed to be about maneuvering.

Sorry to be a downer on people who are excited about this niche part of the new faction, but I'm just trying to understand the cognitive dissonance that is at play here. So to those who poo pooed on traditional fortressing but are excited for CIS turret shenanigans, what is it about Vulture fortressing that makes it different for you? Is it because it's FFG approved? Is it because it's thematic?

Thematic is huge in terms of differences. But I think the one that really matters is there is defined limits on this kind of "fortressing".

First, it's limited to a particularly weak and vulnerable ship. Second, it's limited to specific board locations away from the edge so they can be flown around. Third, it's limited in number per board location. Fourth, those locations can be removed.

A lot of the time it's the limits that make something interesting instead of boring. This is a prime example of that in my opinion.

For the record, I'm almost the opposite of the people you mention... I think fortressing was fine, and I'm a little worried about Vultures.

When fortressing became useful it was a sign that something else was wrong with the game (since fortressing was usually a counterplay to points-fortressing, which is very common to this day and impossible to address).

Vultures could end up being a problem. I expect their low survivability and ability to be outmaneuvered and killed before they shoot will make them pretty balanced though. Honestly though they look fun AF and I'm going to fly them quite a bit when they come out.

parking your vultures on rocks forever is bad and you shouldn't do it

They'll also make themselves very tempting Seismic targets...

10 minutes ago, svelok said:

parking your vultures on rocks forever is bad and you shouldn't do it

Original fortressing wasn't done forever, the good fortresses could instantly break apart and create a formation when it was opportune to do so.

No, just no.

Vulture Droids landing on objects with their robot-legs and turning into turrets fits into the lore of the ships. It turns them into turrets (very fragile turrets), and also turns them into stationary targets.

I'm excited to play against, and possibly try out for myself, a new game mechanic.

Plus, it's rubbish.

13 minutes ago, svelok said:

parking your vultures on rocks forever is bad and you shouldn't do it

Yep. The struts are more about the ability to maneuver in hard to predict ways while still being able to contribute to the battle than to turn Vultures into tinfoil turrets.

I think the fact that the vulture droids park in the middle area of the map makes a huge difference, too. With traditional fortressing, they would usually set up in the corner, so you couldn’t fly past their firing arcs without flying off the map.

With vulture droids, you can fly past them, get behind them, flank them, etc. There are so many more counter play options.

Seismic bombs say hi!

1 hour ago, JJ48 said:

They'll also make themselves very tempting Seismic targets...

I've got a strong feeling we'll be seeing the return of seismic torpedoes in the ARC-170 pack to balance the vulture shenanigans out a bit.

8 minutes ago, viedit said:

Seismic bombs say hi!

I think they actually said bye.

falls into a similar category as YV fortressing:

Moralo Eval, with contraband cybernetics, jabba, and maul.

can stop and stop again, and again, 5 times. All the while having a limitless supply of tokens from maul. Now yes, granted, it's limited to 5 turns, but at the same time, that's a ludicrously long time if the ship is in a good position, and you just have to take up the fortress when opportune. And you can stretch it out much longer and keep the tokens down by just dodging off the board edge when your opponent is threatening to get behind you, and just pop out pointing the other way.

Not entirely sure how I feel about it as a tactic in a game where every ship is supposed to be moving, but it's certainly doable!

1 hour ago, Autosketch said:

Not entirely sure how I feel about it as a tactic in a game where every ship is supposed to be moving, but it's certainly doable!

Given that 2.0 liberally sprinkled the Full Stop maneuver across a number of dials, that may no longer be a truism.

As has been pointed out several times above, seismics now have a strategic value. This sort of "just in case" listbuilding helps the game, IMHO. You need to plan for contingencies, and ever point spent might not be a point used. There will be less "perfect lists" because you can't predict the battlefield.

As possible counters Tobias Beckett also gains a little bit value, as maybe Boba crew (but 4 is a lot, and makes a juicy target once the ships sits there on its own, trying to deny an area to the vultures).

The thing with Seismic charges is you still have to move by closely to the sitting vultures. Unless you have tragedy simulator (which imho should have stayed in 1.0 and be gone, but that's another story), which only certain ships can do.

Commuting right now, so I cannot measure. Can the Vultures move off with their 2 straight before the charge blows and clear themselves? That would be a mind game, fly-off because a bomb might be dropped, or stay put and hail the bomber trying to pass by with cross-fire?

23 minutes ago, Managarmr said:

As possible counters Tobias Beckett also gains a little bit value, as maybe Boba crew (but 4 is a lot, and makes a juicy target once the ships sits there on its own, trying to deny an area to the vultures).

The thing with Seismic charges is you still have to move by closely to the sitting vultures. Unless you have tragedy simulator (which imho should have stayed in 1.0 and be gone, but that's another story), which only certain ships can do.

Commuting right now, so I cannot measure. Can the Vultures move off with their 2 straight before the charge blows and clear themselves? That would be a mind game, fly-off because a bomb might be dropped, or stay put and hail the bomber trying to pass by with cross-fire?

Each range band is 2.5 bases long, so they'd have to be in the right spot and also barrel roll.

42 minutes ago, Managarmr said:

Commuting right now, so I cannot measure. Can the Vultures move off with their 2 straight before the charge blows and clear themselves? That would be a mind game, fly-off because a bomb might be dropped, or stay put and hail the bomber trying to pass by with cross-fire?

18 minutes ago, Matanui3 said:

Each range band is 2.5 bases long, so they'd have to be in the right spot and also barrel roll.

Only if they have more than 1/4 of the front of their base hanging off the obstacle. Barrel roll only allows 1/4 base distance shift forwards or backwards perpendicular to a ship's final heading now that the center line of the template has to be lined up with the center line on the ship's base for the initial template placement and final placement the centerline of the ship has to line up with either of the template edges or the centerline of the template.

3 minutes ago, Hiemfire said:

Only if they have more than 1/4 of the front of their base hanging off the obstacle. Barrel roll only allows 1/4 base distance shift forwards or backwards perpendicular to a ship's final heading now that the center line of the template has to be lined up with the center line on the ship's base for the initial template placement and final placement the centerline of the ship has to line up with either of the template edges or the centerline of the template.

There's also a bit of distance gained from the lateral movement, but yeah, you really do have to be in the right spot.

12 minutes ago, Hiemfire said:

Only if they have more than 1/4 of the front of their base hanging off the obstacle. Barrel roll only allows 1/4 base distance shift forwards or backwards perpendicular to a ship's final heading now that the center line of the template has to be lined up with the center line on the ship's base for the initial template placement and final placement the centerline of the ship has to line up with either of the template edges or the centerline of the template.

BR also moves you sideways 2, increasing the total distance. Depending on the rocks size/orientation, you may be able to do (2^2 + 2^2)^0.5 = 2.8 , and that's before pushing it forward.

5 minutes ago, prauxim said:

BR also moves you sideways 2, increasing the total distance. Depending on the rocks size/orientation, you may be able to do (2^2 + 2^2)^0.5 = 2.8 , and that's before pushing it forward.

On a Vulture? I get that template + base is 2 bases, but the gap is only 1 base. Barrel Rolls don't move you half a base forwards or backwards anymore. The initial placement of the template has to be lined up mid line of the template to midline of the ship now and the only adjustment is on the ending side which ends up being a max of 1/4 (0.25) base since you still have to use the midline of ship's base to align the final position. It has to line up with either long edge of the template (for small bases) or the midline of the template. Lay it out on the table and you'll find the total shift is 0.25 forwards or backwards perpendicular to the heading of the starting position (for small bases other than Starvipers).

2 minutes ago, Hiemfire said:

On a Vulture? I get that template + base is 2 bases, but the gap is only 1 base. Barrel Rolls don't move you half a base forwards or backwards anymore. The initial placement of the template has to be lined up mid line of the template to midline of the ship now and the only adjustment is on the ending side which ends up being a max of 1/4 (0.25) base since you still have to use the midline of ship's base to align the final position. It has to line up with either long edge of the template (for small bases) or the midline of the template. Lay it out on the table and you'll find the total shift is 0.25 forwards or backwards perpendicular to the heading of the starting position (for small bases other than Starvipers).

A 2 moves you 3 and a 1 (or a BR) moves you 2. I assume the first 1 of the 2 forward is mostly negated getting clear of the rock, but if the rock is small or angled, and you BR the correction direction, then the first 1 of the BR is not negated.

2 minutes ago, prauxim said:

A 2 moves you 3 and a 1 (or a BR) moves you 2. I assume the first 1 of the 2 forward is mostly negated getting clear of the rock, but if the rock is small or angled, and you BR the correction direction, then the first 1 of the BR is not negated.

/sigh. So sqrt((3.25^2)+(2^2))= 3.82 bases (rounded a bit for your second including base + full template) from initial position, and sqrt((2.25^2)+(2^2))= 3.01 bases from edge point if starting with front edge right on edge of the asteroid or debris cloud... Mathematically it could work, realistically it needs more room.

Huh? You only need 2.5.

I just tested it. If your dimple (mores specifically, the point where the dimple meets the base) is clear (or even 1-2mm inside the edge) you can almost always clear R1 wit a BR forward.

If the dimple clears by ~2mm and the rock "face" is angled by 45deg, you can do a mid BR away from the angle.

9 minutes ago, prauxim said:

Huh? You only need 2.5.

I just tested it. If your dimple is clear (or even ~2mm from the edge of the obstacle) you can almost always clear R1 wit a BR forward.

If it clears by ~2mm and the rock "face" in angled, you can do a mid BR away from the angle.

Which comes back to what Matanui3 said about being in the right spot, which in both cases your ship's starting position is. I'll admit I was wrong about the needing a full quarter base part though.