16 minutes ago, Biophysical said:

It's not the best, but it's pretty okay, and the 4k and boost/roll access makes up for a lot.

Oh?

Is that why the Defender is so well represented in top 8 placement when it comes to professional play?

1 hour ago, President Jyrgunkarrd said:

Oh?

Is that why the Defender is so well represented in top 8 placement when it comes to professional play?

Lol @ professional play

Nobody is saying it's amazing and top tier, I'm pretty sure we're all interested because it keeps going down and all the other good stuff keeps going up.

The defender is fine.

Anyone who thinks its bad, or that three need to fit, or that juke is necessary, or advanced sensors is bad, or that dash is to expensive is wrong.

Xwing related things are often nuanced.

This isnt one of those times.

The defender is “fine”, constantly flirting with broken. Its not currently OP. Just fine.

12 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

The defender is “fine”, constantly flirting with broken. Its not currently OP. Just fine.

Truth.

Regards the dial, if this thing even had a white 2 hard, it would be a bit much.

3 hard is wide , lots of places a Defender won't fit without stress. Remove that limitation and the time on target goes up a lot. You start to get a thing that not only won't die, but can really chase, given it could roll or boost on that 2 turn. There's not many damage races it wouldn't win.

Another nudge that would be nice, blue 2 banks. Opens extra choice for ditching the stress from those hard turns and 2Ks and opened the dial massively. Coord or AdvS into a red and now you can slow roll out or 2 bank and boost for a wider swing. Much bigger range of choices.

Either of these give you lots more time on target, lots more ways to dodge arc. Moving 1st or 2nd. It would be overboard.

The fact that it's only missing a 1 fwd, Talon Roll or Sloop is maybe worth noting. You can pretty much do anything, you just have to trade your efficiency and plan accordingly.

The dial is integral to the balance of this ship. And its pretty spot on. It is a good dial. Just not an easy one.

I'd say there may be an argument for adding those 2 colours to it's dial in exchange for full throttle, but I imagine it would have to cost more than it does already.

I am just glad there is another ship now with full throttle. I actually watched a player who uses defenders frequently, get a bit upset as the N-1s his opponent were using were getting the free evade. It was a fun silent chuckle to myself.

The defender is fine. Delta defenders are good. Their dial is actually amazing, but has some limits that are real. It’s a super ship that plays very differently, and in order to get value you need to know how to use them.

Honestly two Deltas with a 60ish point closer ship has worked great for me. They weren’t seeing play because too many people are wedded to I5/6.

Instead you should all watch Doctor Deltalove, or How I Stopped Worrying And Learned to Embrace the Bump

Its good, I promise. Also remember that going speed 3 every turn is a trap that will lose you games.

I really feel the nuance in playing the defender is know when not to 4k. It is so easy, and tempting, to just set the dial at 4k and forget for 2 or 3 turns. But as mentioned above, often you need to think about where the next 3 speed move will land you, and if there will be a kill box there.

Also knowing when to go slow is also key, and you can still take the evade. Often people will commit hard to a 4k, so a 1 bank or 2 forward can often catch and opponent out.

I do avoid red moves like the plague however....that may be to my detriment.

3 hours ago, Roundy1161 said:

I do avoid red moves like the plague however....that may be to my detriment.

I do too. Straight forward or 1 bank the next turn feels like it puts them on a plate, and if the red lands in trouble, it's always big trouble.

I used to dial them in more frequently, AdvS makes them a huge temptation. I can only remember 1 situation where it actually worked out well in the end

I think it's a part of the dial that can be well utilised, but it is very dangerous, if not given some intense consideration.

5 hours ago, Roundy1161 said:

I really feel the nuance in playing the defender is know when not to 4k. It is so easy, and tempting, to just set the dial at 4k and forget for 2 or 3 turns. But as mentioned above, often you need to think about where the next 3 speed move will land you, and if there will be a kill box there.

Also knowing when to go slow is also key, and you can still take the evade. Often people will commit hard to a 4k, so a 1 bank or 2 forward can often catch and opponent out.

I do avoid red moves like the plague however....that may be to my detriment.

I totally agree.

It's weird, there are games where I've continually opted out of 4ks in favor of trying to block because I felt my opponent was probably going to exploit the 4k, and then there are games where I've 4ked 3 turns in a row with the same ship.

In both scenarios, the 4k was doing something. In the first scenario it was a threat, in the 2nd scenario it was a good move that didn't have a counter.

Ive done:

Onyx squad ace

-tractor beam

with Echo and a Double edge with an Ion turret.

it was better in 1.0 when the TieD could use tractor then primary attack, but it still works

idea is that the Def only focuses on tractoring ships which are then in place for an alpha attack from the other ships, which are shooting at a ship with one less evade.

ideally the ion turret will then kick in, and the def can tractor that ship next round easier. repeat until ship is dead.

if nothing else, its really fun to play, and has a strong endgame

17 hours ago, Boom Owl said:

The  defender is fine.

Anyone who thinks its bad, or that three need to fit, or that juke is necessary, or advanced sensors is bad, or that dash is to expensive is wrong.

Xwing related things are often nuanced.

This isnt one of those times.

The defender is “fine”, constantly flirting with broken. Its not currently OP. Just fine.

This. If you play your list right, your endgame ship (defender) out of the 3 ships you brought will oupoint and outdefend what the opposition has. And if they chase you, you K turn to fire back and threaten the k turn for next round or yeet out.

If you play your list really good, you lose only half of one ship totalling the opponent's list.

When It comes to the named defenders which do most people prefer, either rexlar or Ryad? I’m looking at running 2 defenders and duchess. One named defender and 1 delta. Just trying to decide on the second defender

On 7/11/2019 at 6:38 PM, Boom Owl said:

On 7/11/2019 at 6:38 PM, Boom Owl said:

The defender is “fine”, constantly flirting with broken. Its not currently OP. Just fine.

M'yes, sir!

It really cannot be overstated how OVERWHELMINGLY poverful a Defender is in the late game

If they get buffed to the point where they're super easy to get into said late game, we're all screwed

Full Throttle on 3 agility + white 4k are simply THAT strong

On 7/11/2019 at 5:38 PM, Boom Owl said:

Anyone who thinks its bad, or that three need to fit, or that juke is necessary, or advanced sensors is bad, or that dash is to expensive is wrong.

Lost me there. I think the TIE/D is fine and that the Delta will be seeing competitive play this season. It's in a great place. So is Advanced Sensors. I used to dislike the steep cost but now I agree it's fully justified. Juke is also an extremely strong upgrade in the right loadout and 7 points is the correct price for it.

But DASH? Seriously...

I don't do organized play. I don't care much about tournament results. I'm a casual (just a very competitive casual). That said, I have never seen or even heard of anyone ever winning even a casual game with any YT-2400 (double-tap Dash excepted - though it's not like even that made a meta splash). I look to the available data to back me up: Listfortress shows two squads with Dash, averaging a percentile of 17. One came 8th out of 10, the other came 15th out of 15. The most die-hard and dedicated fans of the 2400, the only people who will actually take it to a tournament to see how well it can possibly do... just can't.

And Leebo and the Wild Space Fringer didn't show up in a single list.

Can you seriously say that there is any list in all the world where you would pay 6 points to "upgrade" rebel Han Solo to a generic Wild Space Fringer? Is there any list in existence where the YT-2400 will do something that the YT-1300 can't do nearly as well if not better for 20-30% less?

If you can tell me a time when you or someone you know won a game with a list that included a 2400 that wasn't shooting at I7, I'll concede my point entirely. I'll accept the most anecdotal evidence. In fact, I invite everyone to respond. I want to hear of any time that Dash has come through. I just have very serous doubts that they exist at all. I've given this invitation several times before and I've always been met with crickets. No one has heard of a YT-2400 doing well in 2.0.

If you don't believe me, try it yourself. The action economy is terrible . The defensive profile is terrible. Its ability to dodge arcs is terrible . It just dies, and does so very quickly It's a giant points-trap that gets burned down to the least bit of focus fire. It gets easily R1'd and rolls 3 dice against two or three 4-dice attacks. It might be worth a little more than the YT-1300, but it's definitely nowhere near worth what it costs now.

If you make any squad with a YT-2400 that you can fly and beat one out of 4 lists I'll eat all my words and tell you you're right.

4 minutes ago, ClassicalMoser said:

I'm a casu  al      

Are you sure?

Dash is different than the Defender in that the way he's "broken" kinda can't be balanced like a Defender, which still obeys all the core rules of the game

Ignoring obstacles is huge and shouldn't be a thing, imo, without some big constraints and/or conditions (collision detectors, MGT things, qira, CiS struts etc)

The fact that he'd be a lot less relevant because gas clouds is more the fault of gas clouds being...bleh 😑

36 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

Are you sure?

Maybe a good question. I've never played in an OP event in my life, if that answers your question. I started showing up to my FLGS in the last month or two, but not very consistently. I don't have Vassal. I mostly play kitchen table or FlyCasual. But I'm pretty active in the online community and deeply enjoy the game. I'm actually an aspiring game designer myself and have basically chosen X-Wing as the expandable miniatures game that I am apprenticing under in study of the art and science of balancing a living game. So it kind of depends on how you look at it.

36 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

Dash is different than the Defender in that the way he's "broken" kinda can't be balanced like a Defender, which still obeys all the core rules of the game

Ignoring obstacles is huge and shouldn't be a thing, imo, without some big constraints and/or conditions (collision detectors, MGT things, qira, CiS struts etc)

 The fact that he'd be a lot less relevant because gas clouds is more the fault of gas clouds being...bleh 😑

Didn't really mean to totally derail the conversation, so sorry if this is getting far from the topic at hand. I've heard many times that Dash is "broken" and "ignores the core rules of the game." I'll say I don't really have a horse in the race. I didn't really play him or play against him much in 1st edition, though I do own a 2400. While I understand that removing player agency is something that shouldn't be done and can't be appropriately costed, I don't really see any way that Dash does that.

Honestly, every pilot ability ignores some aspect of the game rules, some more than others. Dash does so more than many, certainly, but still only to a certain degree:

• He still can't fire from an Asteroid, unlike Vulture Droids or ships with Collision Detector or R5-X3. Unlike Vulture Droids, that's more than half your list that's now not shooting.

• Defensive bonuses from obstacles still apply (Outrider title changes that but is also morbidly and absurdly overpriced; compare to trick shot. Also hardly affects gas clouds)

• With only 10 health, he absolutely must pay attention to obstacles just as much as every other ship in the game. They're the only advantage he has, defensively, offensively, or for positioning or token shedding. If he's truly "ignoring" the obstacles, he's playing very badly.

But suppose we do say that Dash is bad for the game and should be kept expensive enough to be very rare. Let's follow the examples of Supernatural Reflexes and Gunner Luke. But Supernatural Reflexes and Gunner Luke actually do see play, and substantially more so than Dash, and they do substantially better when they do. I think they're fairly costed. They're prohibitively expensive (expensive enough to be reasonably countered by any standard list played well), but they're still marginally playable. They're playable in fringe cases or playable by dedicated fans. And they can do well when played as such. Dash can't.

Now, let's leave Dash aside entirely for a moment. Let's say Dash's ability and title don't exist at all. We still have the problem of the Wild Space Fringer and Leebo, who are priced at 4 and 6 points more than Han Solo himself. Is there any way to justify that pricing? Let's say barrel-roll and boost is an even tradeoff. We can call 3-sloops and 1-turns even. Let's say 1 green die is a little better than 2 hull and a shield. And let's say that 4 dice at range 2-3 is substantially better than 4 dice at range 1. Does all of that make up for endless passive re-rolls, a second crew slot, and initiative 6? Would you pay 4 points more for those than you would pay for endless passive re-rolls and initiative 6?

Again, I don't have a horse in the race. I'd never heard of Dash or of the YT-2400 before picking this game up. I rarely flew him in 1.0 and have only picked him up a few times in 2.0 to judge viability. I only stand for balance and would like to see everything be reasonably playable. Perhaps the more abusive things can be less so. Dash and the 2400 are nowhere near even that point.

An important piece for Defenders is a Palp Shuttle. Defenders love to be coordinated and Palp keeps the consistency. 2 Deltas and a Shuttle are fun to fly.

I think the Defender is alright. Like the E-Wing, Silencer, and Starviper (fully kitted out), the Defender fits into a role that I like to refer to as the super-fighter. Kinda like the real-world F-35, if it was actually better than the F-22...

The super-fighters in X-Wing can set you back, and look prohibitively expensive for what you’re getting. Their statlines are often amazing, they’re loaded full of gimmicks and system slots, and they can be expected to crush more contemporary fighters in 1-on-1 duels. Their problem is that all of their bells and whistles (can) come with a very steep price tag, often at the cost of 2 standard-er fighters. This means right out of the gate they are under the pressure of being your top performer. They’re your Tiger tanks in a field of Panzer IVs, or a Pershing amongst your M4s, or your Comet amongst your Cromwells for you British blokes. You get the picture... Just try not to fatten them up too much.

Just played against 2 Defenders and a Pall shuttle and it was quite strong, couldn't get more than half points on one ship with my quad Torp N1 list.

3 hours ago, Tvboy said:

Just played against 2 Defenders and a Pall shuttle and it was quite strong, couldn't get more than half points on one ship with my quad Torp N1 list.

Understandable. In 8 games now with double deltas, I haven't lost one, let alone both.

As an alternative to Palp shuttle,

Defenders

(69) Delta Squadron Pilot [TIE/D Defender]
(2) Fire-Control System
Points: 71

(69) Delta Squadron Pilot [TIE/D Defender]
(2) Fire-Control System
Points: 71

(45) "Vizier" [TIE Reaper]
(11) Emperor Palpatine
Points: 56

Total points: 198

Hard to pass on that Jendon value, though

10 minutes ago, Biophysical said:

Understandable. In 8 games now with double deltas, I haven't lost one, let alone both.

I had a pretty similar record in early 1e. I won like 9 or 10 games in a row, only like one game feeling close where I went down to one ship, before a pretty epic crash-and-burn at one tourney where I got tabled twice in the first two games, and resigned the last to have some fun with triple Fang Aces.

Has anyone been working the good Colonel?

Next to the Onyx, easily the most disregarded pilot.

If you haven't seen my relentless waffle on the squad list board, his ability is monstrous paired with AdvS and Outmanoeuvre, when you have locks littered about the table.

Definitely the highest damage output of all the Defenders I've used, by some distance, which is their main stumbling block. Been well worth the extra cost for me, so far.

36 minutes ago, Cuz05 said:

Has anyone been working the good Colonel?

Next to the Onyx, easily the most disregarded pilot.

If you haven't seen my relentless waffle on the squad list board, his ability is monstrous paired with AdvS and Outmanoeuvre, when you have locks littered about the table.

Definitely the highest damage output of all the Defenders I've used, by some distance, which is their main stumbling block. Been well worth the extra cost for me, so far.

He's fantastic with the right wingman (and the Empire is a tad short on powerful locking ships).

On his own, he's exactly equivalent to an Onyx, which is much cheaper.

Basically he's great, but he has no reason to be priced above Rexler.