Veteran Turret Gunner is always one of two things: Either so insanely good that it's basically broken, or very nearly unusable. But it wasn't always this way. Before the first FAQ came out at the opening of 2nd edition, most of us suspected that the wording of VTG wouldn't allow a front-arc double-tap because the front arc and the turret arc did in fact happen to be the same arc in that case. However, many of us were surprised when the devs ruled that the front arc and the turret arc did in fact count as separate arcs for the purposes of Han, Ezra, and VTG.

Now there is precedent for changing a ruling like this. After all, that is exactly what happened to the Roark/Han/Dash list; the FAQ was changed and the list completely died. Supposing they were to reverse this ruling, what would be the fallout?

In the first place, VTG Yion spam would die very quickly. Of course, it could still be well worth it on Norra or other ships that enjoy being in the thick of things or taking multiple arcs at once. Oicunn will probably still like it, and fringe builds like the Hot Rod Decimator or some particularly aggressive large-ship builds may get use out of it, but by and large it won't be as busted and spammable.

In the second place, the price of VTG would almost certainly go down still further. I think something like 3-4 points seems likely, at which point it will become very tempting even for large ships, the primary drawback being only opportunity cost. Two VTG Patrol Leaders could even put some decent work in if they get cheap enough to fly Duchess or Maarek alongside. They'll burn out quickly, but they may just bring enough pain to come out on top and let Duchess clean up what's left over.

And finally, the Yion double-tap would still actually be possible, but would require much more skill to land as you would need to catch your opponent at the intersection of your arcs (good old Armada-style double-tap – I love it!). This turns a boring and brain-dead list into one that requires skill and careful planning to utilize properly.

Now, the odds of this happening... They're probably pretty low at this point. If we go through another season of VTG on everything with a front arc and nothing without, the odds go up. The ruling would probably help out the likes of Han and Ezra as well, who are still unplayably and absurdly overpriced. The Ghost will become a much more interesting ship to fly and Ezra becomes an interesting choice at about 10-12 points.

What do you think? Would you like to see this, or do you prefer VTG as-is? Does this ruling seem like a pipe dream?

It would be much easier and touch far fewer mechanics than to just make VTG cost 7 points for ships with a front arc and 4 points for ships without one.

3 minutes ago, svelok said:

It would be much easier and touch far fewer mechanics than to just make VTG cost 7 points for ships with a front arc and 4 points for ships without one.

I could get behind both this and the OPs idea.

There are two responses to this. The way I play VTG is not impacted substantially, since I usually use it on a Resistance Gunboat Bomber and perhaps on the occasional YT-1300 build. The way it's played against me would be substantially different, but I find that there are ways around the 5Yion build (which is the only one I've seen VTG abuse potential in) that mitigate the effect.

I disagree with the OP.

No change is needed. I've flown Y-Wings and Ghost's with VTG and flown against the dreaded VTG Y Swarm and beat it. So I don't see anything "broken" about VTG.

The forward arc double tap is the only way vtg will ever see play

Same reason why vet tailgunner is an absolute joke

6 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

The forward arc double tap is the only way vtg will ever see play

0 points on a bow-tie arc ship? Autoinclude.

2 points on a bow-tie arc ship? Probably still seeing a lot of play even if it's only getting used once a game.

When opportunity cost is the only significant cost, things see a lot more play.

Veteran Tail Gunner should be 1 point, sure. Veteran Turret gunner is still more useful on bow-tie arc ships than Tail gunner because double-broadsides is usually easier than front-back (I think?), and at least you have the versatility to choose either way.

Front and side arcs is still better than bow-tie, but not as brainless as front-arc double-tap. Norra gets it all the time and plenty of Scurrgs, Ys, Starfortresses, Ghosts, etc. get it a lot. At 2 points it would be a steal (at least if you don't have a better gunner to use, which we really don't if we're being honest).

1 hour ago, ClassicalMoser said:

Veteran Turret Gunner is always one of two things: Either so insanely good that it's basically broken, or very nearly unusable. But it wasn't always this way. Before the first FAQ came out at the opening of 2nd edition, most of us suspected that the wording of VTG wouldn't allow a front-arc double-tap because the front arc and the turret arc did in fact happen to be the same arc in that case. However, many of us were surprised when the devs ruled that the front arc and the turret arc did in fact count as separate arcs for the purposes of Han, Ezra, and VTG.

Now there is precedent for changing a ruling like this. After all, that is exactly what happened to the Roark/Han/Dash list; the FAQ was changed and the list completely died. Supposing they were to reverse this ruling, what would be the fallout?

In the first place, VTG Yion spam would die very quickly. Of course, it could still be well worth it on Norra or other ships that enjoy being in the thick of things or taking multiple arcs at once. Oicunn will probably still like it, and fringe builds like the Hot Rod Decimator or some particularly aggressive large-ship builds may get use out of it, but by and large it won't be as busted and spammable.

In the second place, the price of VTG would almost certainly go down still further. I think something like 3-4 points seems likely, at which point it will become very tempting even for large ships, the primary drawback being only opportunity cost. Two VTG Patrol Leaders could even put some decent work in if they get cheap enough to fly Duchess or Maarek alongside. They'll burn out quickly, but they may just bring enough pain to come out on top and let Duchess clean up what's left over.

And finally, the Yion double-tap would still actually be possible, but would require much more skill to land as you would need to catch your opponent at the intersection of your arcs (good old Armada-style double-tap – I love it!). This turns a boring and brain-dead list into one that requires skill and careful planning to utilize properly.

Now, the odds of this happening... They're probably pretty low at this point. If we go through another season of VTG on everything with a front arc and nothing without, the odds go up. The ruling would probably help out the likes of Han and Ezra as well, who are still unplayably and absurdly overpriced. The Ghost will become a much more interesting ship to fly and Ezra becomes an interesting choice at about 10-12 points.

What do you think? Would you like to see this, or do you prefer VTG as-is? Does this ruling seem like a pipe dream?

This whole thing wasn't a surprise at all.

It was basically the return of the old BTL-A4 Y wing title made famous by the Stresshog.

Comparing it to double tap Dash is blowing it way out of proportion.

Personally, I've been thinking lately that Veteran turret/tail gunner should just be baked into ships with multiple arcs. The idea being that a ship with multiple arcs (either inherently or added by a turret) should all be able to fire once from each arc... with the limitation that you can't fire out of the SAME arc in the case of stuff like Y-Wings, Lancer, etc.

Then, you could have things like BTL-A4 configuration that would allow a Y-Wing to fire both its turret and primary in its forward arc, but would restrict you to shooting only one weapon when the turret is in a different arc. Or a Veteran Turret gunner might allow you to double-tap from the same arc for a hefty price.

It needs a slight bump up in price -- was over-costed, now under-costed -- but it's otherwise OK IMO.

2 hours ago, MikeEvans said:

Personally, I've been thinking lately that Veteran turret/tail gunner should just be baked into ships with multiple arcs. The idea being that a ship with multiple arcs (either inherently or added by a turret) should all be able to fire once from each arc... with the limitation that you can't fire out of the SAME arc in the case of stuff like Y-Wings, Lancer, etc.

Then, you could have things like BTL-A4 configuration that would allow a Y-Wing to fire both its turret and primary in its forward arc, but would restrict you to shooting only one weapon when the turret is in a different arc. Or a Veteran Turret gunner might allow you to double-tap from the same arc for a hefty price.

As much as I like the idea of a Lambda being able to fire both forward and backward, I feel that this would either make single-arc ships completely obsolete, or else require all multi-arc ships to go up in price enough that they would be far more restricted than they are now.

I think the primary reason for limiting them is for gameplay reasons. However, if you really want a lore reason for why every multi-arc ship can't fire in all directions all the time, please realize that aiming and firing weapons requires a certain amount of concentration. A single gunner trying to operate multiple weapons is not going to be able to easily use all of them at the same time. This is why multi-firing gets easier if you add more gunners to your ships.

There is nothing wrong with ruling. Maybe a slight points adjustment but it’s fine.

4 hours ago, MikeEvans said:

Personally, I've been thinking lately that Veteran turret/tail gunner should just be baked into ships with multiple arcs. The idea being that a ship with multiple arcs (either inherently or added by a turret) should all be able to fire once from each arc... with the limitation that you can't fire out of the SAME arc in the case of stuff like Y-Wings, Lancer, etc.

Then, you could have things like BTL-A4 configuration that would allow a Y-Wing to fire both its turret and primary in its forward arc, but would restrict you to shooting only one weapon when the turret is in a different arc. Or a Veteran Turret gunner might allow you to double-tap from the same arc for a hefty price.

And extra cannon attacks should also be backed into ships with cannon slots. I think that was a missed opportunity with 2.0.

Unpopular opinion: I sort of like bonus attacks being on more things, they seem to me like a more "fair" thing to pay points for than say, passive mods or additional action choices.

I wish there were more cards that added bonus attacks and less cards that added passive mods or messed with the action bar and dial of ships.

Additionally, turrets/extra arcs are a huge potential to be a problem because of their tendency to reduce the risk/punishment for maneuvers (see: 360 firing in 1.0) and allow the run-away-while-shooting method of gaming the time/MOV system. I honestly think it makes turrets seem even more fair when they're stuck in the front arc and used to just make normal firing arcs shootier.

TL;DR, VTG is underpriced but I don't see it as a fundamental game design problem.

If I'm spitballing things for Veteran Turret Gunner, why not errata "against a different target" onto it?

I don't necessarily have a problem with double-tap at the right price, but the price is clearly wrong. The issue with VTG design is that it has two radically different power levels. On a ship only with two opposite-end firing arcs, it's worth 3 points, tops. On a ship which can overlap a turret arc with a fixed-arc primary weapon, it's worth probably 8 points. That could be addressed by an awkward points scaling chart, allowing two different prices. Probably idea, but kind of a mess. Alternately, the price could be lowered if the most powerful case could be weakened by ruling out two same-arc attacks with an alteration in rules/interpretation, as per the original post.

But I suppose another way of getting to a similar destination would be to rule out two attacks on the same target. Errata is unpreferable, but it'd be interesting to think it out. It'd rule out the "corner arc" double-tap where something is in both front and side arcs, which I'd consider a plus (if we're ruling out double-taps, rule them out). Meanwhile, cleave-attacks aren't as potent as same-target double-taps, in general. However, it does really step on Bistan's toes. While I think that Bistan is kind of absurdly overpriced, considering the focus requirement, it still points at something: same-arc cleave attacks are still considerably stronger than attacks against ships in 180 degree opposite arcs.

So I've talked myself out of it. An errata to VTG to prevent same target attacks probably doesn't go far enough to lowering the power-level on double-front ships in order to lower the cost to where it'd be fair on opposite-end arcs. It's fine for some upgrades to be better on some ships than others, but it'd be nice if things were a bit closer.

I think VTG is fine as is, but if you want to eliminate a lot of perceived problem builds you could bump up the point cost to 8 points.

I believe this'd eliminate most of the builds that currently use them, or at the very least necessitate modifying those builds somewhat.

As for the tail gunner, it could probably be lowered to 1-2 points, possibly see more use, and still not be any problem.

Both of the above reduce potential problems, while not changing any mechanics.

4 hours ago, JJ48 said:

As much as I like the idea of a Lambda being able to fire both forward and backward, I feel that this would either make single-arc ships completely obsolete, or else require all multi-arc ships to go up in price enough that they would be far more restricted than they are now.

I think the primary reason for limiting them is for gameplay reasons. However, if you really want a lore reason for why every multi-arc ship can't fire in all directions all the time, please realize that aiming and firing weapons requires a certain amount of concentration. A single gunner trying to operate multiple weapons is not going to be able to easily use all of them at the same time. This is why multi-firing gets easier if you add more gunners to your ships.

Nah, I disagree. If it were that powerful for ships to be able to shoot out of front/back arcs at the same time, Veteran Tail Gunner would be a must-have on Arcs. As it is, VetTailGunners are kind of a joke according to most people. Think about how many times you've had the opportunity to shoot at two things, one in front and one in back (or side/side) in a game. It happens more often front/side, and most often when you can doubletap.

It’s probably fine at 8 points on a Y-Wing, but what about the Decimator? Hot Rod uses it because it’s cheap and no other gunner is worth taking. If it could drop further for ships with no arced primary (maybe 2), would it be better than the ubiquitous empty gunner slot?

Why not have the point value scale to base size?

14 minutes ago, Kehl_Aecea said:

Why not have the point value scale to base size?

Because large base ships are in enough ungodly, agonizing pain.

4 minutes ago, Captain Lackwit said:

Because large base ships are in enough ungodly, agonizing pain.

Maybe "scale" was the wrong term... make it cheaper on large base ships and the price goes up as the base size shrinks.

20 minutes ago, Kehl_Aecea said:

Why not have the point value scale to base size?

Because Base Size is irrelevant.

Veteran Turret Gunner is worth it's current points (or more) on Y-Wings, TIE Aggressors, Scurrgs, MG-100 Starfortresses, and VCX-100s (that is, all the ones which have front-arc primary weapons). That's small, medium, and large.

Meanwhile, Veteran Turret Gunner is not worth the price on K-Wings as well as YTs and VTs--medium and large. Base Size scaling just doesn't address the issue, not really.

No please, why do you hate my Ghost so much? She already suffers enough as is. Cheap VTG/turrets and Hera is all that's keeping her alive.

22 minutes ago, GILLIES291 said:

No please, why do you hate my Ghost so much? She already suffers enough as is. Cheap VTG/turrets and Hera is all that's keeping her alive.

I was hoping for one of these, but kind of expected it with the Aggressor--a truly very bad ship. VCX is kind of on the bubble of being good, and kind of creeping up.

Anyhow, as I see it, the ideal solution is to have the ship cost the right amount, and the upgrades cost the right amount for the value they add. That won't always be possible, but it's still better to get close to it. While a more playable Ghost or TIE Aggressor is a decent goal, underpricing VTG for Y-Wings and Scurrgs strikes me as too steep a price to pay.

Meanwhile, it's never going to fix something like a TIE Aggressor, since that's a ship so close in design to a Y-Wing that without a price-cut to the base ship for the weaker statline, it'll never see play--barring some Empire-only tricks. While a price-cut on an Aggressor is probably fairly easy, VCX is running close to that 3-per-list breakpoint, and probably can't go much lower.

One other thing: VTG isn't even that popular on Ghosts, according to MetaWing. It's only in 7 out of 21 Hera lists, and doesn't show up on Lothal Rebels either. Given that, I don't think a 2-point ding on VTG is going to kill the Ghost. The almost-sure Leia nerf might, but still.

Both Leia and Veteran Turret Gunner seem more like symptoms of an overcorrection with regards to the price of certain rebel ships (That is, ships which were once too expensive are now too cheap). Leia didn't dominate when she was free at Coruscont, after all. Some of that might have been due to other shifts in the metagame, but it still seems to suggest that Leia isn't nearly the problem some people think she is.

As for the concept of double tapping, I don't see a problem. It's an alternative to extra modifiers on one attack that attacks defenses in a different way. That sort of diversity seems good for the game, actually.