TIE Punisher

By Tokra, in Star Wars: Armada

I just was bored and thought about some new squadrons. And i came up with this:

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Let me know what you think of these. And yes, i thought about the officer slot. So far i cannot see any problem with it on squadrons.
Only 10 cards will work, 3 have no real effect (Hondo, Titus, Needa).

The last 7 would give some great variation into the squadrons.

Hondo works perfectly, as does Titus.

Im immediately leery of multiple attacks base when Jendon is around... But even if you’re making 3 attacks, it’s a 3 separate targets, so hope you’ve got Rhymer to help 😁

Edited by Drasnighta

I really dislike the Punisher. It’s such a lazy design. Scimitar assault bomber is a much better design for a heavy bomber archetype.

Officer on a fighter - interesting concept.

1 hour ago, ISD Avenger said:

Officer on a fighter - interesting concept.

The Lambda-class shuttle should have this. A variant that abandons relay and/or strategic and adds an officer slot.

You could also have a variant that has a commander slot, with or without the officer slot, and have a ship title that works like Profundity, but for Lambda-class instead of small ships.

2 hours ago, Drasnighta said:

Hondo works perfectly, as does Titus.

Im immediately leery of multiple attacks base when Jendon is around... But even if you’re making 3 attacks, it’s a 3 separate targets, so hope you’ve got Rhymer to help 😁

Yes, they do. but they work on any ship in the same way. there is no bonus on using them on a squadron.

1 hour ago, ISD Avenger said:

I really dislike the Punisher. It’s such a lazy design. Scimitar assault bomber is a much better design for a heavy bomber archetype.

Officer on a fighter - interesting concept.

Honestly it is a practical design you would see irl. Take a platform that works well and add more bomb capacity.

Also @Tokra I would bump the base cost by one and drop a hit point by one.

1 hour ago, TallGiraffe said:

Honestly it is a practical design you would see irl. Take a platform that works well and add more bomb capacity.

Also @Tokra I would bump the base cost by one and drop a hit point by one.

I thought about it. Especially when comparing it to a B-Wing. A B-Wing is 14 as well. But 1 less speed, 2 less hull, a bit better anti squadron attack and not heavy.
But on the other hand, compare it to a YT2400. Speed 4, Hull 6, 4 blue, rogue. For only 16 points.

14 was quite fitting, as long as you compare it to the better squadrons and not to the worst (B-Wing, Scurrg). Basically it is a TIE Bomber, slower but 2 hull more. Both Bomber and Heavy. TIE Punisher just has 1 blue more on anti squadron and anti ship. Thats it. And this for 5 more points. Comparing to a TIE Bomber the Punisher looks fair. Compared to a B-Wing it looks overpowered.

And if you take the extra cost for the officer upgrade, it looks fine.
Tie Punisher with Kallus for 17 points? Or with Brunson for 19.
But the best combo i see is Deathrain with Palatine or Goran. And this is not broken, but for sure fun.

I really would love to see some squadron with upgrade slots. To make them a bit more different.
How about a YV-666 with a Turbolaser slot? Or Decimator with Gunnery Team? Sound fun for me 😁

5 hours ago, Tokra said:

Yes, they do. but they work on any ship in the same way. there is no bonus on using them on a squadron.

There is absolutely a bonus.

It frees up that Officer Chair *on* the ship for an Officer that helps said ship... Like Brunson.

Its a circumvention of Opportunity Cost

Edited by Drasnighta

Also, can I Tua on Cluster Bombs?

1 hour ago, Drasnighta said:

Also, can I Tua on Cluster Bombs?

As much fun as that would be, no. It doesn't have any other upgrade slots. ;)

Tua adds one, doesn't she?

I like the idea of what your going for, but these things would murder everything with Sloane. Change the dies to double black for both anti squad and ship and I'm sold.

I like them as is, but think they need a bump in points. Deathrain is basically Wedge with an Officer Slot & two more hull & 4 blue/2black (instead of 6 blue) & he doesn't care if a squad has activated & he has an additional bomber die.

Question: does the Officer slot on the squadrons count against your squadron cap or just fleet cap?

4 hours ago, Drasnighta said:

Also, can I Tua on Cluster Bombs?

From what i saw Tua could add Cluster Bombs or ECM. both also not broken.

2 hours ago, Karneck said:

I like the idea of what your going for, but these things would murder everything with Sloane. Change the dies to double black for both anti squad and ship and I'm sold.

Double Black against ships sound a little bit dangerous 😀 .
But removing Bomber does not sound right as well. After all the Punishers are pimped up TIE Bombers. And giving them Rogue would not work as well. It would dive up the cost for these way to much.

1 hour ago, eliteone said:

I like them as is, but think they need a bump in points. Deathrain is basically Wedge with an Officer Slot & two more hull & 4 blue/2black (instead of 6 blue) & he doesn't care if a squad has activated & he has an additional bomber die.

Question: does the Officer slot on the squadrons count against your squadron cap or just fleet cap?

Same as the ship upgrades count for the ship they are on, the upgrades on squadrons should count for the squadron they are on as well.
Punisher with Intel Officer would cost 21 this way.

On the other hand, compare Deathrain to Dutch. Same speed, 1 hull difference, about the same against squadrons. But the effect from Dutch is way stronger (against squadrons), and Dutch cost 3 less.
These 6 dice from Wedge are way stronger than the blue+black from Deathrain. I thought of Deathrain more like bad against squadrons. You cannot Jendon him, And splitting up the damage can be bad as well.

It is always bad to compare Imperial squadrons to Rebel squadrons. Their synergy is so different. Basically you have to keep at the same faction if you want to compare squadrons.
Something like the TIE Punisher would be way more deadly on rebel side (Adar and Yavaris). The best compare could be a Firespray. 1 Hull less but not Heavy and has Rogue. Better anti squadron attack, bit weaker ship attack.
Or to a TIE Bomber. Bomber costs only 9, is faster, has "only" 2 hull less. And would have one less blue on both (anti ship and squadron). For 18 points you can get 2 TIE Bomber.

And if you use the officer slot, the squadrons will become to expensive. Maybe something like: "Upgrade on squadrons cost half points round up". This way the squadrons could cost 2 more, but don't loose the use as officer shuttle.

Especially when comparing to YT-2400s, where the discussion on them is usually rotated around them not being pointed high enough either ... Comparisons to them are not necessarily favourible to Balance.

1 hour ago, Tokra said:

On the other hand, compare Deathrain to Dutch. Same speed, 1 hull difference, about the same against squadrons. But the effect from Dutch is way stronger (against squadrons), and Dutch cost 3 less.

Not sure why you are comparing with Dutch at all, it is apples to oranges. But since you are; it is still 6 dice to Dutch's 3, thus I wouldn't say way stronger. Dutch can whiff after all, and needs to activate first to get primary benefit. Dutch costs 3 less but loses 1 Hull, 1 anti-ship dice (which is huge) and slightly worse anti-squadron attack dice.

1 hour ago, Tokra said:

Th  ese 6 dice from Wedge are way stronger than the blue+black from Deathrain. I thought of Deathrain more  like bad against squadrons. You cannot Jendon him, And splitting up the damage can be bad a  s w  ell.

Umm, no. Black dice have a 75% chance of damage. Blue is 50%. Blue are better against scatter aces, but this Deathrain with its spread damage would more likely be targeting non-scatter opponents anyway. You can Jendon him, but that shouldn't really affect his pricing, thus is irrelevant. And splitting damage can also be good, particularly with other imp aces like Mauler and Fel.

1 hour ago, Tokra said:

It is always bad to compare Imperial squadrons to Rebel squadrons. Their synergy is so different. Basically you have to keep at the same faction if you want to compare squadrons.

I disagree here as well. To some extent yes, but for the most part you should be comparing with the most similar existing ship. Which is the Scurrg. The Scurrg, for +2 points, gets Grit, loses 1 Hull and changes a black and anti-squadron to blue (a downgrade). Not sure how you think that is an upgrade.

I agree the most similar Imp ship is the Firespray. Generally I estimate Rogue as costing 2 points, thus remove this and for an extra +2 points, the Firespray gets you -2 Hull, change of black anti-squadron dice to 2 blue (expected damage 0.75 to 1.0) and downgrade of anti-ship dice with a black to blue, and gain Heavy. Again, pretty glaring discrepancies.

Keep in mind that specialist ships like Scurrg are paying a slight premium as they are costed assuming they can do what they are designed to do more often then not.

1 hour ago, Tokra said:

And if you use the officer slot, the squadrons will become  to expensive. Maybe something like: "Upgrade on squadrons cost half points round up". This way the squadrons could cost 2 more, but don't loose the use as officer shuttle.

On 7/8/2019 at 5:49 AM, Tokra said:

A   nd   if you take   the  extra   cost  for the officer  upgrade      , it looks  fine       .
Tie Punisher with Kallus for 17 points? Or with Brunson for 19.

And this just hurts my brain. You seem to be justifying dropping its points because it has an officer option, which you are under no obligation to fill. And because most officers are overpriced on this platform, you counter by dropping the base price.... people just won't add the overpriced options. Not really a fan of the idea anyway, as may add unintended design problems in future, and is pretty gimmicky.

My suggestions would be to make double black anti-ship and anti-squadron; but make 2 points more expensive, 2 speed only, and drop the officer slot. Or for something a little weirder, make both armaments Red-Black, for 1 less point.

Five hot dogs, one bun.

Actually these look costed about correctly. Huh.

17 hours ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

Five hot dogs, one bun.

PH.com is that-a-way man.

So for me personally I like the officer slot on the unique squad but would take it off of the regular squads. And probably increase their value by 1 point. But otherwise I really like the idea and wish that the tie punisher was added to the game at some point!

I'd prefer to see Alpha class starwings over the punisher tbh, as cool as the punisher is, it's basically just a tie on steroids, where as the alpha is something new and different

Here is an idea: Tua+EWS on a TIE Punisher means it cannot be flakked by 1 die as squads have one big firing arc. It also reduces every attack and every counter. Add this to Deathrain with Jendon and you have a nearly indestructible 4 dice attacker against ships and a whooppy 5 dice against squads for only 28 points. The next best thing that comes in mind is a Raider I for 44 points...

22 minutes ago, Norell said:

Here is an idea: Tua+EWS on a TIE Punisher means it cannot be flakked by 1 die as squads have one big firing arc. It also reduces every attack and every counter. Add this to Deathrain with Jendon and you have a nearly indestructible 4 dice attacker against ships and a whooppy 5 dice against squads for only 28 points. The next best thing that comes in mind is a Raider I for 44 points...

Interesting thought... But I'd argue against it on, (of course, knowing me), Rules Technicalities :)

The argument I'd make is, although they, by definition, may have a 360 degree firing arc (this is questionable, as hull zones are deliniated by firing arc lines, and hey, they have no lines) - they don't have a hull zone, and since you place the EWS marker on the hull zone (not the firing arc)... No placement :)

So of all of them, I don't think you could EWS... Same as you couldn't use Reinforced Blast Doors, because although you have damage to heal, you don't have facedown damage cards to discard...

2 hours ago, Norell said:

Here is an idea: Tua+EWS  on a TIE Punisher means it cannot be flakked by 1 die as squads have one big firing arc. It also reduces every attack and every counter. Add this to Deathrain with Jendon and you have a nearly indestructible 4 dice attacker against ships and a whooppy 5 dice against squads for only 28 points. The next best thing that comes in mind is a Raider I for 44 points...

The problem is that squadrons have no hull zones. And no hull zone means there is no zone where you can place the chaff token. EWS would not work. I only found Cluster Bombs and ECM as the only working upgrades on squadrons from defense slot. You could equip the EWS on a Punisher, but it has no use.

This is why i ignored all cards that have size restrictions, hull zones, Commands (Dial or Token) or speed. Or refer to anything else that squadrons don't have. These just do not work on squadrons. You could equip them (beside the size restriction), but they do not work.
For example on the Turbolaser Slot. Quad Battery Turrets do not work, because squadrons have no speed or maneuver. Enhanced Armament do not work, because squadrons have no front/rear hull zone.
Slaved Turrets would work, because it is not required that the squadron has more than one attack (like ships do).
Examples for the officer slot: Ozzel does not work, squadrons cannot do maneuvers. Aresko does not work, squadrons cannot have command tokens. Pryce does not work because squadrons have no size.
Iden Versio could work (the first part), if you can get a evade token on the squadron. The second part could not work, because squadrons have no commands.

Basically i checked all upgrade slots. And i found non that could cause some trouble on squadrons. Only the Ordnace slot has to be used carefully, you would have to watch out what squadron get this slot. Bossk with Flechette Torpedoes or External Racks "could" be a little bit overkill 😉 . Or TIE Bomber with APT.

I think the “TIE Punisher stats” and “Officers on squadrons” are two separate ideas, really. Both are interesting and (to me) worth serious consideration. I mean, I don’t know why squadrons with officer slots should be unique to the Punisher, and if that were to be a thing at all, perhaps it should be a new and different kind of upgrade distinct from officers for ships.