They have at least 3 configurations and 6 health with Armor. I know they are flying off the page with those stats, but I didn't think much of the Danger Sense rule until I ran with it and while its not as good as Palpatine's defense (which he can still fail a roll), Jyn and the pathfinders do okay. I think we should wait until the rest of the configurations are revealed before we declare them dead on arrival. They will move about the same or a little better than the movement 2 infantry figure. The flame rifle is going to be really good I think. Blast and Spray are usually decent combos.

1 hour ago, Mep said:

It is hard to read those blurry cards, but that is exactly how I am reading it too. So at the convert surges step, you can convert hits to crits. The timing is important, since this happens before cover removes hits, unlike impact that happens after cover.

Well guys just be honest with yourself...

1. If Critical X changes hits to crits during the convert surges step it means if you roll no surges at all you still convert X hits to crits.
2. A critical strike normally is based on a chance in every game. with this its not at random because you don't need to roll surges as implied.
3. If 1. is true nobody ever needs impact anymore and it renders the Impact keyword completely obsolete because you always convert to crits even with no armor

so for me its clear if both keywords have to have a right to exist side by side:

Critical X can only apply to surges

Impact X changes X hits to crits after dodge and cover against armored units

edit: and if critical can convert hits before dodge and cover the T47 would be even worse than it is with its cover😂

double posted sry

But if Critical only converts Surges to Crits, then Frag Grena

50 minutes ago, Taiowaa said:

Well guys just be honest with yourself...

1. If Critical X changes hits to crits during the convert surges step it means if you roll no surges at all you still convert X hits to crits.
2. A critical strike normally is based on a chance in every game. with this its not at random because you don't need to roll surges as implied.
3. If 1. is true nobody ever needs impact anymore and it renders the Impact keyword completely obsolete because you always convert to crits even with no armor

so for me its clear if both keywords have to have a right to exist side by side:

Critical X can only apply to surges

Impact X changes X hits to crits after dodge and cover against armored units

edit: and if critical can convert hits before dodge and cover the T47 would be even worse than it is with its cover😂

If that's the case, then Frag Grenades could have had the special rule "Critical" similar to how we have both Armour and Armour X. There are equally valid arguments for and against either design.

Also, Impact is not "completely obsolete" since only certain units will have no access to Critical, which so far have been the most expensive of the Corps options. In the current "maximise activations" meta, taking a bunch of expensive corps units leads to smaller units or fewer activations.

By that logic, charge is obselete because relentless exists. Inferior versions of keywords can exist if they're cheaper, or available on a more powerful frame. For instance, not only are stormtroopers cheaper than Shoretroopers, their DLT has an average damage of 1.75 instead of the Shoretrooper's T-21B's 1.25.

19 minutes ago, Squark said:

By that logic, charge is obselete because relentless exists. Inferior versions of keywords can exist if they're cheaper.

no because i think there you must seperate 3 different keywords: Relentless, Charge and Steady. And i think IRG on purpose has not relentless because it would be to strong to get that ranged attack off of a move action.

I must admit you are right that weaker keywords can exist if they are cheaper and we don't know the costs yet but if critical works with hits to crits, it literally outclasses not only impact because impact only works against armor, but its more like a Sharpshooter + High Velocity X keyword (as long as you have at least X hits after converting surges) because you cannot cancel it with a dodge token. That means even through hard cover and a dodge token a minimum of X hits come through which you have to roll defense dice against

So seriously Critical 1 must be at least double the price of an impact 1 weapon, maybe more. and i dont think a critical 2 weapon will cost 35+ points

20 minutes ago, Taiowaa said:

no because i think there you must seperate 3 different keywords: Relentless, Charge and Steady. And i think IRG on purpose has not relentless because it would be to strong to get that ranged attack off of a move action.

I must admit you are right that weaker keywords can exist if they are cheaper and we don't know the costs yet but if critical works with hits to crits, it literally outclasses not only impact because impact only works against armor, but its more like a Sharpshooter + High Velocity X keyword (as long as you have at least X hits after converting surges) because you cannot cancel it with a dodge token. That means even through hard cover and a dodge token a minimum of X hits come through which you have to roll defense dice against

So seriously Critical 1 must be at least double the price of an impact 1 weapon, maybe more. and i dont think a critical 2 weapon will cost 35+ points

Thinking about it now, unless Critical changes how attacks currently work, then Dodge and Cover is applied first, before attack dice are modified by cards (Impact, Critical, Armour, Guardian, etc). Which does make a difference from how Frag Grenades work. Even if they convert hits, the major change is allowing them to get past Guardian and other card effects that cancel hits but not crits.

Critical is a new key word and developed after the whole armor and impact game was developed at the start of the game. Impact itself hasn't had much of an ... umm impact on the game because armor hasn't had much of a role in the meta. Critical is a way to boost certain units that get to use it to make them useful in many situations. It is similar to the combo of sharpshooter and high velocity, except it can also hit armor.

Also of note, the Armor X keyword is now a thing. We may see more units get Armor X so they are not so terrain dependent and yet can be countered by units with Critical X, which isn't a useless ability unlike Impact when armor isn't present.

FFG may also be just moving away from the Impact keyword as a whole, since some of the best units in the game get impact making armor not so desirable. Critical just hits everything hard, so it doesn't matter so much if the meta is heavy in critical X units. Armor can still be used. Right now, so many things have impact, it is an advantage to not have armor at all, making all those impact units a waste of points. If the meta moves away from impact entirely, then armor has a chance.

5 minutes ago, Caimheul1313 said:

Thinking about it now, unless Critical changes how attacks currently work, then Dodge and Cover is applied first, before attack dice are modified by cards (Armour, Guardian, etc). Which does make a difference from how Frag Grenades work. Even if they convert hits, the major change is allowing them to get past Guardian and other card effects that cancel hits but not crits.

don't know if i understand you right but presently the order is:

roll dice, convert surges, apply dodge and cover, modify dice

and the critical cards definately say its during the convert surges step so before the dodge and cover step

5 minutes ago, Caimheul1313 said:

Thinking about it now, unless Critical changes how attacks currently work, then Dodge and Cover is applied first, before attack dice are modified by cards (Armour, Guardian, etc). Which does make a difference from how Frag Grenades work. Even if they convert hits, the major change is allowing them to get past Guardian and other card effects that cancel hits but not crits.

Yeah, I believe that is the whole point of the "during the convert surges phase". It happens before cover and dodge and guardian. It is a simple way to push damage through without having all these silly sharpshooter/pierce/high velocity over complicated combos.

1 minute ago, Taiowaa said:

don't know if i understand you right but presently the order is:

roll dice, convert surges, apply dodge and cover, modify dice

and the critical cards definately say its during the convert surges step so before the dodge and cover step

Like I said, unless it changes how attacks currently work, and apparently it does. 😛

Thanks, couldn't quite make that out on my monitor.

The Dewback has I think the most uninterrupted look at Critical's reminder text - it looks to me like it says when converting surges you may switch up to 2 [Surge] to [Crit]. This would mean it happens at the surge conversion step presumably, so it's more general than Impact - but not as common. There's only one surge face on each die, where as there are various amounts of Hits on Black or Red dice when taking into account impact - probably why it looks like Critical weapons aren't very expensive - the Dewback T-21 blaster adds four whole dice (already with normal surge) and has Critical 2 but is only 10 points, something like the HH-12 with Impact 3 only adds three dice (and is an exhaustible, cumbersome weapon) but costs loads because those dice are already pretty accurate with hit conversions.

This I think is different enough from the adding stuff like Surge > Hit or Surge > Crit which affect your entire pool in the terms of dice without needing to track any X. There's no need to call that say "Critical" as a keyword (such as the Armor vs Armor x example) because we already have a non-keyword mechanic for that, just say you convert surges.

Of course, from a technical standpoint, it could also just be the T-21 is so cheap because it uses white dice which are pretty weak for impact (your chance of a surge or hit is as much as a Crit already, so fish) - but Critical doubles your chance of crits on an individual white die. While still keeping normal surge conversion a unit like the Dewback has.

i still do not believe that critical will convert hits to crits but surges to crit. maybe iam wrong but critical is then just so **** powerful because you are guaranteed that you opponent has to roll X defense dice independant of how hard his cover and how many dodgetokens and how nimble it is

1 minute ago, UnitOmega said:

The Dewback has I think the most uninterrupted look at Critical's reminder text - it looks to me like it says when converting surges you may switch up to 2 [Surge] to [Crit].

Yeah, that is the big big question right now. Is the dress blue or gold. Some people see that symbol as surge, others see it as just hits. I don't think the symbol is fat enough to be a surge but I can certainly see why one would say it is.

and as for frag grenades. mayby they just invented the critical keywords and weren't thinking about a partical convertion until recently

I mean, if it's the surge step, it's logically probably surges, and I think that makes the mechanic different enough from Impact to justify using it. Considering how pricey most Impact weapons are, you could just eratta it to apply without armor if you wanted it to be general, the fact that surges aren't as common as hits would make it a "budget impact" - more effective vs cover and dodges, but not nearly as reliable as say, Impact on Red Dice.

Alternatively, if it was hits, wouldn't it be worded just like Impact when it takes place (besides that not being as useful, obviously)?

2 minutes ago, UnitOmega said:

I mean, if it's the surge step, it's logically probably surges, and I think that makes the mechanic different enough from Impact to justify using it. Considering how pricey most Impact weapons are, you could just eratta it to apply without armor if you wanted it to be general, the fact that surges aren't as common as hits would make it a "budget impact" - more effective vs cover and dodges, but not nearly as reliable as say, Impact on Red Dice.

thats what i though its diffentent enough in its uses. if it would convert hits then if i have a choice, given same price, between critical and impact then critical just outlcasses impact by far.

@UnitOmega Everything you say makes perfect sense and that is exactly what I though except that image doesn't look like it is a surge. It looks like a hit to crit. Again, it is hard to see it since it is so pixelated.

Well, so distortion is distortion, but for me when I zoom in, the symbol on the T-21 card looks different than the [Hit] symbol on the actual Dewback card for Armor. I'm not CSI but the pixels look like a different pattern. The northwest and southeast corners of T-21 seem softer and less dark, like the Surge symbol, rather than the points all the same length on a Hit symbol.

A closer analogue for points purposes is the Z-6 heavy weapon from the Rebel Troopers corps. After subtracting the points for the body holding the Z-6, the weapon itself is 12 points for 6 white dice Range 1-3 without keywords. So IF the weapons are all price based solely on dice provided and the keywords have a set price that doesn't check the dice of the weapon, then the Dewback gets Critical 2 for 2 points (8 points for the white dice, 2 for Critical 2). So, that does incline me more towards Critical converting Surges.

I do agree there are plenty for reasons that FFG didn't give Frags "Critical," I was just pointing out is was something they COULD have done. It would work very similarly to Armour/Armour X, however, it is also possible they felt it was simpler to just spell it out each time.

13 minutes ago, Mep said:

@UnitOmega Everything you say makes perfect sense and that is exactly what I though except that image doesn't look like it is a surge. It looks like a hit to crit. Again, it is hard to see it since it is so pixelated.

It's a surge.

I don't see how there is a debate here. It looks like a surge and it would be entirely too powerful and redundant to other keywords (sharpshooter, impact etc.)

Critical X is like a less reliable hybrid of Sharpshooter and Impact

6 minutes ago, KommanderKeldoth said:

Critical X is like a less reliable hybrid of Sharpshooter and Impact

Less reliable? It applies before dodge & cover, so where your hits vs armor go away before impact can be applied because of cover, with critical they go through.

Do not disparage the greatness that is the Dewback Rider.

#dewbacks4ever

2 minutes ago, DewbackScout said:

Less reliable? It applies before dodge & cover, so where your hits vs armor go away before impact can be applied because of cover, with critical they go through.

Do not disparage the greatness that is the Dewback Rider.

#dewbacks4ever

actually as many think your hits still go away but your surges go through but its pointless to argue any more untiwe know exactly what symbolit is.

as for me its just hit to crit would be too powerful in my eyes and surge to crit looks promising

If Critical converts hits to crits in the "convert surge" step, then that is seriously the nail in the coffin for vehicles in Legion. I really hope not. It would mean we have more widespread easy access to crits but, unlike Impact, cover and dodges can't do anything about it.

16 hours ago, Jake the Hutt said:

So... Dewbacks seem kind of not great to me. I'm not an Imperial player and I haven't seen them in action yet, but they seem underwhelming.

Thank the Force you didn't suggest they're the wrong rank or are poorly timed, otherwise this whole thread would turn on you for being such a hater.

Quote

As Imperial players how will you use it effectively? As Rebel players do you think you'll have trouble dealing with it?

I will buy 3 and paint them all with a different weapon model. These will be with 3 heavily loaded up squads of stormtroopers, an Imperial Officer, probably hire one of the bounty hunters with them. That's over 700 points. Upgrades or squeezing in another unit, or taking droids instead of extra troopers, will depend on what the deal ends up being with the 3 dewback rider's weapons.

As a rebel player, soon I will be making one 800 point list and sticking with it regardless of perceived threats for a long time. This will save me time in real life, and in games with loads of special rules, prior experience with a list is usually more important than what's actually in it.