30 minutes ago, svelok said:

(ahem)

Does CIS now have the title of owning the weirdest ship in X-Wing?

I wasn’t sold on CIS initially but they really are starting to look like the most unique faction in the game. The nantex brings so very interesting acey-ness and I can’t wait to try and figure out how it works. The no repositioning is challenging but much needed given its abilities. Very compelling design!

Edit: wait up, after you rotate the arc, you get a tractor token which means you straight boost or barrel roll, right? That is amazing!

Sorry I was late to the game on this but that is nifty as heck!

2 hours ago, urbanyeti said:

I wasn’t sold on CIS initially but they really are starting to look like the most unique faction in the game. The nantex brings so very interesting acey-ness and I can’t wait to try and figure out how it works. The no repositioning is challenging but much needed given its abilities. Very compelling design!

Edit: wait up, after you rotate the arc, you get a tractor token which means you straight boost or barrel roll, right? That is amazing!

Sorry I was late to the game on this but that is nifty as heck!

Question is... who does the tractor? You or your opponent?

Yeah, ,what a WEIRD ship. Also, considering its smallness, idk why it has 4 hull.

20 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

Question is... who does the tractor? You or your opponent?

Yeah, ,what a WEIRD ship. Also, considering its smallness, idk why it has 4 hull.

The ship itself is the source of the Tractor, so you do it. Perhaps they tried it with 3 hull and it didn't work for it?

What I want to know is what that card beneath 'Ensnare' is about. It looks like the title includes 'Deflection', and is talking about granting a reroll or rerolls, a tractored ship, and an arc.

It has to be something interesting, as it is competing directly with hurling your opponent around with Ensnare. Something along the lines of allowing you to reroll defensive dice if you are tractored and the attacker is within your mobile arc, to represent using the tractor field to deflect incoming fire?

On 4/7/2019 at 7:23 PM, __underscore__ said:

For the record, Hate/Grevious/Dooku was what I tested today and is the build I'm settling on for the Open next weekend. Plus 5 drones with Energy Cells.

I ended up going 4-2 with this one, which I'm pretty happy with. There was one game I made a serious error which cost me the game, the other one was Born/Lulo/Vennie which I made a bit of an mistake but it could've still done either way.

First couple of games were some variation on U-Wings and friends, which my list kinda eats for breakfast.

Dooku crew did a lot of work though, I can't count the number of times he turned a Hit/Focus/Blank into Hit/Hit/Crit for basically 2 force. Hate is amazing and Grevious is a no brainer. Though generally people didn't shoot Maul that much as they had some concerns about the mini-swarm in front of him. Most of my games were won on points that way.

Though it has to be said that most of my opponents hadn't played much against Separatists, so it remains to be seen whether that affects things. Either way, I was happy with the list.

2 hours ago, AceDogbert said:

What I want to know is what that card beneath 'Ensnare' is about. It looks like the title includes 'Deflection', and is talking about granting a reroll or rerolls, a tractored ship, and an arc.

It has to be something interesting, as it is competing directly with hurling your opponent around with Ensnare. Something along the lines of allowing you to reroll defensive dice if you are tractored and the attacker is within your mobile arc, to represent using the tractor field to deflect incoming fire?

It seems to me that it allows rerolls of green dice based on how many Tractored enemy ships are close (Range 1) to you.

2 minutes ago, Pink_Viking said:

It seems to me that it allows rerolls of green dice based on how many Tractored enemy ships are close (Range 1) to you.

That's an interesting idea, but unless the card also allows you to pass off the tractor token, it would require more than one Nantex (one with Ensnare, one with this card) to work.

Maybe it allows for rerolling a green dice for each friendly ship with a tractor token which has the defender in their mobile arc? Again, this makes a thematic sense, with a swarm of the fighters combining their tractor fields to deflect incoming fire. Could be tricky to set up, however.

3 minutes ago, AceDogbert said:

That's an interesting idea, but unless the card also allows you to pass off the tractor token, it would require more than one Nantex (one with Ensnare, one with this card) to work.

Maybe it allows for rerolling a green dice for each friendly ship with a tractor token which has the defender in their mobile arc? Again, this makes a thematic sense, with a swarm of the fighters combining their tractor fields to deflect incoming fire. Could be tricky to set up, however.

Yeah that makes a lot more sense. Gosh, Nantexi are going to be such a hassle to play.

39 minutes ago, Pink_Viking said:

Yeah that makes a lot more sense. Gosh, Nantexi are going to be such a hassle to play.

I find them to be an intriguing idea at the moment. I don't fly CIS (My loyalty is to the Republic! To Democracy!) but the Nantex is looking like a really unique platform which is going to cause headaches (can it use Outmaneuver?). Hopefully, it will be priced in such a way that allows for a mixed formation of Vultures and Nantex.

I don't suppose anyone thinks the lowest I generic is gonna be any less than 41 points?

2 minutes ago, Prosk_019 said:

I don't suppose anyone thinks the lowest I generic is gonna be any less than 41 points?

Now you are asking the very interesting question. Given the generics weigh in at I3, the dial is pretty good (all blue banks, red 5K) and three agility, I'd expect them to be reasonably costly. However, given the (potential) two unique talents linked to the ship's ability, the unique fire arcs (this is the first bullseye primary we've had), and the fact that there are aces up to I6, I could see the generics being in the high 30s, with one of the talents pushing them to 41-42pts. Any cheaper, and you could see a list of five of these things hurtling towards you.

1 minute ago, Prosk_019 said:

I don't suppose anyone thinks the lowest I generic is gonna be any less than 41 points?

Without a talent slot, it's just a 2 dice turret, with 3 agility but only 4 hull, and it can only re-position by decreasing its agility to 2. It gets 3 dice in bullseye, but can't face the turret rear.

Compare that to the RZ-2/HWK at 32, or the TIE Striker at 34 (a generic which is, itself, already overpriced.)

It might be a bit more expensive than those two, conceivably, but if they're 41 points that's a pretty huge slap in the face. You'd take an X-Wing (if you could) instead every single time.

Hey, just an update on my thoughts re: 8 Vulture Swarm (All i1, 7 generic+DFS, 6 w/ ESC, 2 w/ Discord) . Took it to a local Hyperspace tournament (the Store Championship equivalent) this weekend.

Game one: Boba/Guri/L33T.

-Energy Shells took Boba to half health in the initial engagement, I think he ended up doing... 1 damage to a Vulture? He kept L33T and Guri back, so their only shots were vs the Buzz Droid Swarm I hit Boba with, and said shots were obstructed by a gas cloud. Buzz Droids proceeded to chew Boba up until he died two or three rounds later (with a little more fire incoming from Vultures.)

-Guri is so **** flighty! I haven't played vs an experienced Guri player before, so it took me a while to figure out how to catch her. Got her down to half points throughout... Kept working on L33T when I had shots there and not on Guri.

-I believe I ended up killing Guri and halfing L33T. I know I got 180 points. I believe I lost four Vultures, but still had a pretty decent MoV lead on him.

Game two: Scum Han/3 generic MGTs/Autopilot Drone on Han/Outer Rim Pioneer flying near the MGTs.

-I'd brought rocks, which I regretted in this game and the next. I will probably switch over to Debris as I don't mind the stress, and if I do clip an obstacle then I can still take a shot at least.

-Ran my whole list up the right side of the board, 5-straights the first two rounds, into 2- or 3-turns around the rocks. He ran his MGTs at speed 3 down the opposite side of the board, with Han (w/Qira) charging through the asteroids.

-He kept boosting away from his best shots to avoid getting hit by my ESC's, but I still hit him pretty hard within the first couple turns of engagement.

-Time was called and all that had died was one Vulture. Last round I managed to barely finish off Han, Buzz Droids finished off one MGT, and I got half points on another MGT and I think the Auto Drone. I think he ended the game with two of my Vultures dead and... four at half? Either way I won--MoV was... less great.

Game three: Obi-Wan/3 generic V-19's/generic ARC w/Palp+7FG

-Turn one, all of my Vultures do 5-straight forwards. Not unusual. But I landed one on a rock... Next turn he attempted to do a 1 turn because the enemy was bearing down and I didn't want to strand him. Still ended up on the rock. Morale lowered. 😜

-DFS barrel-rolled turn one to avoid that same rock, leaving him extremely alone and too close to where the enemy was coming in. Lost him pretty quickly first round of engagement.

-The ARC rolled so. Many. Evades. Got through his shields and landed a crit with I believe ESCs. Didn't much matter, he regen'd a shield and reloaded 7FG the next turn.

-I did manage to kill Obi-Wan, even after I had lost half of my ships. The rest of the match was just myself fleeing, slowly losing Vultures.

My impressions: I still think the list can win against most things, to be honest. In both games I've ever lost with it, I happened to have at least one Vulture hit a rock and subsequently either lose a shot or be extremely out of place. When I'm able to engage the bulk of my ships at range three within the same turn, they shred things and generally don't take much damage in return. It's a list that does rely on dice variance a bit, as Calculate beats out a TL every time (if you don't have a shot for a round and aren't getting shot, reloading ESC's is usually the move at that point.) and only two natural greens can hurt you pretty badly. Calculate sharing helps to mitigate that a bit, but the most important thing is just positioning . **** that up and you lose. Do well in that regard, and you can usually throw enough red dice at one target that something's going to die, outside of extreme dice variance. And staying at range three, especially if you can single anything out, you'll rarely lose a Vulture to pure initiative kill that first round (I feel like Protorps might change that, but I haven't actually faced any with this so far). Even double-tapping yions couldn't manage to kill one Vulture, that one game when I began combat with one poor Vulture at r2 of all of his ships.

edit: I got 4th out of 10. So I got an acrylic proton bomb, which is cool.

I've heard talk of a 'time-on-target' meta to do with the resistance a-wings. I feel like these could be quite dangerous if they're costed to account for their tractor restrictions and finicky bulls-eye attack, since you could effectively strafe enemies en-masse with these things.

I'm curious... After completing a 5k maneuver, will the Geonosian fighter be able to take a tractor token to perform a rotate action, despite not being able to perform that action due to stress? I know usually in 2.0 you can't pay a cost unless you can receive the other end of the deal, but this seems to be worded a bit differently than previous cases.

3 minutes ago, SpiderMana said:

I'm curious... After completing a 5k maneuver, will the Geonosian fighter be able to take a tractor token to perform a rotate action, despite not being able to perform that action due to stress? I know usually in 2.0 you can't pay a cost unless you can receive the other end of the deal, but this seems to be worded a bit differently than previous cases.

Good question - I think so?

7 minutes ago, svelok said:

Good question - I think so?

If so, they could potentially still reposition after turning around, which is pretty incredible. And if you're good at lining up your turret arc, you can just pass off that tractor to an enemy ship. Pretty dang cool stuff on this ship.

See? I was so excited for Republic but the CIS is just blowing them out of the water with fun new playstyles. Republic is cool. but I've been playing so much Rebels already that they aren't as exciting to me yet.

11 minutes ago, svelok said:

Good question - I think so?

If the card says 'Rotate your ^ indicator' then yes, the geno could probably take a tractor while stressed to rotate.
However, if it says 'Perform a arc rotate action' then no. Usually you can't perform anything that is an 'action' while stressed. But you can do other things like 'acquiring a lock' while stressed.

11 minutes ago, AngryAlbatross said:

If the card says 'Rotate your ^ indicator' then yes, the geno could probably take a tractor while stressed to rotate.
However, if it says 'Perform a arc rotate action' then  no. Usually you can't perform anything that is an 'action' while stressed. But you can do other things like 'acquiring a lock' while stressed.

It says "You may take 1 tractor token to perform a [rotate] action." Obviously it can't rotate action while stressed. I'm just wondering if it'll be able to tractor itself if it so desires.

7 hours ago, SpiderMana said:

It says "You may take 1 tractor token to perform a [rotate] action." Obviously it can't rotate action while stressed. I'm just wondering if it'll be able to tractor itself if it so desires.

Yeah, it's super unclear. This is the first card in the game that it really matters for.

7 hours ago, SpiderMana said:

I was so excited for Republic but the CIS is just blowing them out of the water with fun new playstyles.

CIS really seems like the "weird game mechanics" faction. Appeals really directly to people who like things that break the rules on how ships are supposed to work.

3 minutes ago, svelok said:

CIS really seems like the "weird game mechanics" faction. Appeals really directly to people who like things that break the rules on how ships are supposed to work.

Like. Yeah? But also just... something new is fun, I guess.

1 hour ago, svelok said:

Yeah, it's super unclear. This is the first card in the game that it really matters for.

CIS really seems like the "weird game mechanics" faction. Appeals really directly to people who like things that break the rules on how ships are supposed to work.

Most pilot/ship abilities are specifically breaking the rules on how ships are supposed to work, in a very targeted fashion. I don't see how this faction is any different.

2 hours ago, svelok said:

Yeah, it's super unclear. This is the first card in the game that it really matters for.

CIS really seems like the "weird game mechanics" faction. Appeals really directly to people who like things that break the rules on how ships are supposed to work.

It’s more that they break the rules in unique and novel ways.

So many whacky mechanics to try and consider with CIS. They do feel like the novelty go to right now.

On 4/15/2019 at 12:00 PM, SpiderMana said:

I'm curious... After completing a 5k maneuver, will the Geonosian fighter be able to take a tractor token to perform a rotate action, despite not being able to perform that action due to stress? I know usually in 2.0 you can't pay a cost unless you can receive the other end of the deal, but this seems to be worded a bit differently than previous cases.

I’m pretty sure the answer is no. You have to be able to rotate to get the tractor token. However they can bump then rotate and tractor to roll off the block.

14 minutes ago, Caduceus01 said:

You  have to be able to rotate to get the tractor token. 

Any reasoning or precedent behind this statement? Or you’re just guessing that’s how they’ll rule it?