It is sad that the illicit slot is considered the faction defining upgrade, and I practically never use it. Most aren't worth the points they cost and the rest wouldn't be worth it even if they were free. Great concept, but a worthwhile application is still missing.

4 hours ago, Redd9 said:

That new jumpmaster in the upcoming pilot pack must be really friggin good for all these scum nerfs🤣

probably not. jump5K has been the most nerf ship of all. there are few fixes for its dial and 2 dice turret. if punishing one was cheaper we would see it played more. one of the problems with it is Dengar is pretty strong even despite the nerfs, so making the other pilots or the ship itself better might tip the balance too far for FFG.

i wish the escape craft didnt get points increase as it was quite cool having a cheap coordinate enabler. its now priced so that its hard to put in a list that has relevant supporting ships. Scum has really become the jankiest of the factions and despite having some solid options just doesnt have the consistency to compete in a meta where passive mods from the force are everywhere. Would empire and republic be as good without force enhanced pilots?

3 minutes ago, Da_Brown_Bomber said:

i wish the escape craft didnt get points increase as it was quite cool having a cheap coordinate enabler. its now priced so that its hard to put in a list that has relevant supporting ships.

** sees Scum player complain about Escape Craft being too expensive **

** looks at 32-point AP-5 and 40+ point Lambda **

** looks at 26-point L3-37 **

Um... sir?

11 minutes ago, DR4CO said:

** sees Scum player complain about Escape Craft being too expensive **

** looks at 32-point AP-5 and 40+ point Lambda **

** looks at 26-point L3-37 **

Um... sir?

🤨 Um... Talk about laser focusing on one aspect of a ship... Care to actually look at the 3 ships in their entirety and try again?

To be fair, probably not... Wouldn't fit your narrative... 😠

4 minutes ago, Hiemfire said:

🤨 Um... Talk about laser focusing on one aspect of a ship... Care to actually look at the 3 ships in their entirety and try again?

To be fair, probably not... Wouldn't fit your narrative... 😠

The narrative being that Scum have the objectively cheapest Coordinate caddie in the game yet still find excuses to complain about it?

Yep, you caught me. 🙄

EDIT: Just to make the point clearer: I would totally fly L3-37 over AP-5 in Rebel if I could, for no other reason than I get to spend 6 extra points on my real ships.

Just now, DR4CO said:

The narrative being that Scum have the objectively cheapest Coordinate caddie in the game yet still find excuses to complain about it?

Yep, you caught me. 🙄

Costs the same as AP-5 to get a white coordinate on the table...

L3-37 (26)
Tactical Officer (6)
Total: 32

You're blowing smoke, and it reeks.

Why are you spending those 6 points? Just take the stress.

I'm not saying Scum don't have issues -- Boba got over-nerfed for sure, Fenn has the unfortunate distinction of being about the only i6 with a fair cost, among other things -- but lacking a quality Coordinate caddie is not their problem.

3 minutes ago, DR4CO said:

Why are you spending those 6 points? Just take the stress.

I'm not saying Scum don't have issues -- Boba got over-nerfed for sure, Fenn has the unfortunate distinction of being about the only i6 with a fair cost, among other things -- but lacking a quality Coordinate caddie is not their problem.

It forces the squad to slow boat until L3-37 is at 2 hp... The YT Tug is not a "quality" coordinate caddy.

47 minutes ago, Da_Brown_Bomber said:

a reasonable and well written response to my post

i must've forgot my /s

at least we still have have guri and boba and fenn!

A slight boost to the scum faction by the way, in the new FAQ, see tractored: "While a tractored (1 for small, 2 for medium, 3 for large) ship defends, it rolls one fewer defense die." Previously, you rolled one less die as soon as you had one tractor token. Not a direct scum boost, but we do have a whole lot of medium and large base ships.

2 minutes ago, dotswarlock said:

A slight boost to the scum faction by the way, in the new FAQ, see tractored: "While a tractored (1 for small, 2 for medium, 3 for large) ship defends, it rolls one fewer defense die." Previously, you rolled one less die as soon as you had one tractor token. Not a direct scum boost, but we do have a whole lot of medium and large base ships.

Now apply that "boost" to everything in S&V that depends on tractoring something or targeting something that is tractored to have any appreciable effect... Soft defensive "buff" with a hard offensive nerf...

Ketsu/Old Teroch/Kavil will be a little weaker against larger base lists, but on MetaWing, all archetypes until like 4x U-Wings at #56 are mostly all small based with an occasional large ship in a list, so it shouldn't impact them that much.

And recent upgrades haven't entirely dumped on Scum, Snap Shot probably benefits Scum more than any other faction. Scum offers some of the cheapest Snap Shot carriers available and some of the best synergies with Snap Shot. Seevor can use Snap Shot to jam, and can fly in a Snap Shot swarm with 4 Surveyors + an Outer Rim Pioneer for a potential 12 shots(!) in a single turn. Ketsu can use it with Zuckuss without penalty against ships that move before her as long as she has a blue maneuver dialed in, can combo it with Shadowcaster to tractor ships before engagement happens, and with the right setup, can even tractor a large base ship entirely by herself. Krassis can Snap Shot in the rear arc. Ahhav can throw 6 red dice at any ship larger than him. Graz can throw 7 red dice at any ship stupid enough to face away from him. Torani Kulda can double tap her ability without needing the setup for Cluster Missiles. Joy Rekkoff can pair it with Ion Torpedoes to shoot 2 buffed Snap Shots, though this is probably too expensive to use. Manaroo potentially doubles her damage output while adding a permanent pseudo-front arc no matter how her turret is aimed-- possibly too expensive at 56 points + upgrades (keeping her light with say IG-88D seems good?) but looks a little more usable than before as a fat support ship.

Epic is also an arena to watch for, Scum has some nasty nasty tricks up their sleeves that they just can't afford in a 200 point match. Nym + Andrasta Emon with loaded Boba (Crew) + Electro Proton Bomb + Cluster Mines can set up a giant 2 range bubble of denial practically anywhere on the map and can dump some mines to further disrupt the enemy's approach. If Snap Shot triggers on Huge Ships, Ahhav has the potential to be excellent filler. Drea can bolster the offenses of an entire swarm of generics. Tac Scrambler Slavers can form a massive wall for Drea and other important support ships to hide behind while advancing towards the opponent. Dace can be paired with any source of ion to inflict massive energy disruption on huge ships. IG-88s can all flock together, with D riding his own ship or in a crew slot to stack the IG-88A/B/C abilities, such as on Boba Fett. Manaroo can supply a pair of extra Focus or Calculate tokens to C-ROCs to modify attacks with. A cloaked Quadjumper with Targeting Computer + Targeting Synchronizer could help to provide missile and torpedo boats with shots on important targets, such as huge ships. Stuff like that.

4 hours ago, Hiemfire said:

Costs the same as AP-5 to get a white coordinate on the table...

L3-37 (26)
Tactical Officer (6)
Total: 32

You're blowing smoke, and it reeks.

Personally... I think my favored Coordinate for Scum is a Mining Guild Surveyor with Squad Leader for 31pt. It’s a bloody Tie Fighter that ignores asteroids. Sure it can’t coordinate off a Boost or Lock, but you’ve got Focus, Evade, and Barrel-Roll to work with.

But the best part is that if it dies all you really lost was a tie fighter.

Well for me Scum has slowly died in 2.0. I have not be able to build anything that would be fun and do well same time even in casual games and restart kinda killed new ships from them for longest time and now CIS etc factions get more for good reason.

So now I am playing CIS because it is fresh and fun for me in casual games. I have been playing with idea that I would sell my Scum 2.0 and invest that money for upcoming CIS and for those ships that I still miss. I have sold my Rebels and Imperium long time ago! I had before all those original factions but now I cant afford them with higher prices and Im less crazy about having it all!

I do like 2.0 and it has been made changes in mind.

11 hours ago, Hiemfire said:

The recent nerfs via RR update (Cik got ****** too) + Coaxium = massive middle finger to the faction...

I know why they did it though. It's in anticipation of weird shenanigans with Huge ships coming with epic. But still, with this update it puts Vizago in the same bin as R5-TK. Even at 0 points its really useless.

8 hours ago, Okapi said:

It is very odd that the Illicit slot is so useless. I guess it's fine that there's no single autoinclude, but out of that many upgrades it should be possible to find one that's at least decent.

Just to point out HOW useless it is. In a recent HOTAC campaign a friend and I played we have fully upgraded ships except the Illicit slot. Every week we look at it and go... what can be put here? Oh wait, each and every Illicit is junk.

(For the people who doesn't know HOTAC is a fun multi-player vs AI campaign thing where you gain XP and upgrade your ships as you go)

8 hours ago, spacebug said:

What's the tractor change?

All changes to reign in the Nantex tractor-jitsu (Which is sad because I thought it looked like a fun and workable mechanic), and Scum tractors just got nerfed as a result.

I think a lot of the problem with Scum is that the Illicit slot that almost all Scum ships get makes them over-costed compared to their competitors in other factions- without giving any Illicit upgrades that are really worth taking for their cost. Contraband Cybernetics is probably the best of the lot, but 3 points for a 1-use upgrade is not great. Everything else is very situational, with none being something like 1.0 Glitterstim that was tacked on to ships like the Kihraxz to give ships that don't have linked actions/the ability to double-mod a cheap way of boosting their usage.

There are very few Scum "pocket aces" that are decent in the 30-50 point bracket, meaning that building a Scum list requires a lot more set-piece building around a single ship or trick, like the Ketsu build or a Drea-swarm. There really isn't the option to fly the 3-4 ship combos that you see in Republic, Rebel, Resistance, or Imperial builds a lot- where you have 2 really good Aces and then a couple of filler pocket aces that can still hold their own.

6 hours ago, dotswarlock said:

A slight boost to the scum faction by the way, in the new FAQ, see tractored: "While a tractored (1 for small, 2 for medium, 3 for large) ship defends, it rolls one fewer defense die." Previously, you rolled one less die as soon as you had one tractor token. Not a direct scum boost, but we do have a whole lot of medium and large base ships.

This is direct nerf to Scum not a boost whatsoever. Tractor is weaker and it's nothing good for a faction that has most usable and potent tractor deliverers.

Scum is thematically the faction "bunch of selfish basterdz", fixated on carry themselves. No formation flying, chaotic hilarity instead order. Almost no force users. Relying on illegal mods and substances¨, themselves, and not their team mates.

Which I thematically really like.

However with the weak Illicits (the only half way decent one Contraband is at 3pts, come on FFG, Leia at 6 is a total steal comparatively), strong coordination and otherwise helping crew and sensor slot stuff in other factions, and especially now force nearing 1st edition unblockable passive mods, the faction really hurts.

7 hours ago, DR4CO said:

The narrative being that Scum have the objectively cheapest Coordinate caddie in the game yet still find excuses to complain about it?

Yep, you caught me. 🙄

EDIT: Just to make the point clearer: I would totally fly L3-37 over AP-5 in Rebel if I could, for no other reason than I get to spend 6 extra points on my real ships.

Someone clearly has not flown the Escape craft. Look at the firing arcs of the others! Look at its dial again. As soon as it wants to turn, it dies, if the opponent knows what (s)he does.

6 hours ago, Hiemfire said:

Now apply that "boost" to everything in S&V that depends on tractoring something or targeting something that is tractored to have any appreciable effect... Soft defensive "buff" with a hard offensive nerf...

So true. I love me my Serissu (or Genesis before force users became abundant), who applied -1 def to an opponent and the rest of my squad lighted them up. That got more difficult now.

As if the M3A needed another hit.

Upcoming G4R-GOR V/M (M3-A Interceptor) hopefully is something really cool.

AP-5 has 1 more HP, 2 attack arcs, white coordinate + white 2 hard turn. Reverse 1 instead of stop. And you can coordinate stressed ships. I think it is a lot for 6 point cost, which is exactly how much you need to pay for only white coordinate, which was used very often on L3 and Lando before nerfs to Tactical Officer and Escape Craft.

20 hours ago, Hiemfire said:

Side note, Dace got buffed. What ever that might be worth.

20 hours ago, SabineKey said:

It’s enough to have me look at Dace, but I don’t feel it’s enough for me to actually field him.

20 hours ago, PhantomFO said:

Dace needs two things:

1) A Turret upgrade slot.

2) Rules for using a Turret upgrade slot on a ship that already has a Turret. Even something simple like, "If a Turret upgrade is equipped to a ship with a mobile firing arc, it uses the same arc for both primary and secondary weapon attacks." They can even add variable pricing to the upgrade depending on whether the ship has a single or double turret. An Ion turret could be 5 points for Dace, but 11 points if you put it on something like a K-Wing.

Dace needs two things:

1) 4-LOM crew

2) Static Discharge Vanes

For 10 points (much cheaper than Moldy Crow), you can unavoidably tractor a large ship every 3 rounds, and a small ship every round (that you can get R1 and don't mind doing a 1-straight). On top of that, you get an attack with token denial. If there was a way to get him an Evade token I'd fly the heck out of a moldy Juking Dace. With Engine and at I4 he even has a little ace potential, though not much.

Of course, that's too much of a points bubble that busts easily. Still, just 4-LOM and SDV keeps him suuuuper low (44 points!) and has some massive control potential. I suspect he'd fly especially well with bombers to ion people into.

But like many things in Scum, while it's potentially quite fun, it's definitely not good.

And going back to the main subject of the discussion, I feel like the three OT factions have got kind of fun-creeped out of the meta a bit. Empire's still doing well because they have some really well-costed ships (for the most part; still salty about generics). But none of the three factions, especially scum, get to participate in the awesome things that are coming out now; Strain/Deplete tokens, variable action bars, multi-limited generics, etc.

While I do think good points costs will be enough to make everything competitive, it won't make them more fun. Resistance and CIS tricks work so well and so consistently, but all the scum tricks just kind of ... don't... And Rebels still don't have a true ace except potentially Precog Luke who's only I5, or Han/Leia/Lando who are stuck on a large base. Both Rebels and Scum suffer a lot from having truly excellent I4 pilots in a meta where I5 is underpriced and I4 is overpriced, so they just can't get enough work done for their cost. To top it off, the absurd pricing of the Aethersprite aces (7B Anakin, CLT Obi-Wan, CLT Plo Koon all fit with 19 points to spare) just pushes any interesting things they have mostly out of existence.

For those interested, I've revisited my statistically-driven points predictions for this season. Sample size is low so there's some erratic stuff, and I think there were some errors in the W4 entires. So take it with a grain of salt, but here it is:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fZqj7rroGGcAPio285FJ7qOnluaUtixxs508FJq1pwQ/edit?usp=sharing

You can find the current predictions under "S2 Pilots" and "S2 Upgrades." It applies the algorithm to existing data and averages it with last season's prediction.

In summary:

Pilots that the algorithm thinks are performing above average – Boba Fett, Fenn Rau, Old Teroch. That's ALL!

Pilots that the algorithm thinks are performing at average – 2 Escape Craft pilots, the I1 Fang, Torkil Mux, 2 Kimogila pilots, Ketsu, Seevor, I3 Viper. That's ALL!

Upgrades that the algorithm thinks are performing above average – Fearless, Shadow Caster Title. That's ALL!

Upgrades that the algorithm thinks are performing at average – Maul, 0-0-0, Qi'ra, Virago, all 3 Firespray titles.

Everything else in the entire faction is performing below average! Everything else in the entire faction gets at least a point cut off!

All this to say: Maybe Ketsu's fine. I'm okay with the nerf. THE PROBLEM is that pretty much nothing else in scum is performing even at an average level.

3 pilots and 2 upgrades above average. 9 pilots and 7 upgrades even at average (2 of which are shared with other factions anyway). Don't complain about Ketsu. Complain about everything else.

If you have snap shot and someone at range 0-1 you can Ion them during Activation Phase if you trigger Snap Shot on someone else. Asajj with Foresight and enemy ending at your R1 bullseye also works. I think that enemy doesn't need to have green tokens to use 4-LOM.

That's pretty bad 😜 SDV is so overcosted.

Even Ion Scyk is better than your Dace.

Imo, scum's issue is mostly that of overcosting and, yes, a lack of scum only fun (apart from a few neat ships)

For example, pretty clear at this point that illicit is NOT scum only. Well...okay it IS, but we're talking scum & resistance scum & rebel scum. That's all three of the scum factions!

What do? Scum only illicits imo.

Other than that, good to maybe focus on the unique ships scum has (some of which may or may not have been nerfed a tad much)

Imo, the single most unique scum ship is the Quad. There is simply nothing else like it (to my knowledge) in that it's an action tractor effect. Now the Nantex's Ensnare resembles it, but the mechanics are still wildly different (especially the bullseye double tractor bit)

The problem? Probably too expensive

Another unique subset of scum is some incredible payload abilities. Emon, Sol, zuvio; "genius" are all pretty neato.

Issue, again, is they're super expensive! At least this is (imo) a game wide issue with bomb stuff, but it could definitely stand to be addressed. If you HAVE to pay more to enable an ability, make the dang pilot CHEAPER

other cool subsets of scum include the Mining Tie (cheapest talented generic, I believe), our low I HWK buddies (here's where Dace would put his ion buff...IF HE COULD ION!), Vipers with their microthrusters, and the shadowcaster

So, imo, there's definite potential within S&V to make it quite interesting! The foremost (and most easily solved imo) problem is you pay way too much just for the BASE pilots before you even start purchasing shenanigans

2 hours ago, ClassicalMoser said:

For 10 points (much cheaper than Moldy Crow), you can unavoidably tractor(?) a large ship every 3 rounds, and a small ship every round (that you can get R1 and don't mind doing a 1-straight). On top of that, you get an attack with token denial. If there was a way to get him an Evade token I'd fly the heck out of a moldy Juking Dace. With Engine and at I4 he even has a little ace potential, though not much.

Dace's ability works with ion (which 4-L0M gives him and Static discharge does pass one token to someone else for a stress), not tractor. Ion doesn't deny tokens except to droids (the Focus action is still permitted).

A refresher (from the updated Rules Reference, buff bolded and underlined) :

ION
A ship is ionized while it has a number of ion tokens relative to its
size: at least one for a small ship, at least two for a medium ship,
and at least three for a large ship. Ion tokens are red tokens.
During the Planning Phase an ionized ship is not assigned a dial.
During the Activation Phase, an ionized ship that did not have a dial assigned
to it during the Planning Phase activates as follows:
1. The ship skips its Reveal Dial step.
2. During the Execute Maneuver step, the ionized ship executes the ion
maneuver. The ion maneuver is a blue [1 straight] maneuver. The bearing,
difficulty, and speed of this maneuver cannot be changed unless an ability
explicitly affects the ion maneuver.
3. During the Perform Action step, the ship can perform only the Focus action.
4. After the ship finishes this activation, it removes all of its ion tokens.
Additionally:
• An ionized ship cannot perform any action except the Focus action.
• Some special weapons inflict ion tokens instead of dealing damage.
• If a ship becomes ionized after the Planning Phase (and therefore has
been assigned a dial) but before it has activated during the Activation
Phase, it activates as normal. During the next Planning Phase, if the
ship is still ionized, it is not assigned a dial and proceeds with the ion
maneuver during the Activation Phase.
• Since an ionized ship does not have a dial assigned to it and does not reveal
its dial, it cannot resolve any effects that trigger after it reveals its dial.

13 hours ago, Enigami said:

Ketsu/Old Teroch/Kavil will be a little weaker against larger base lists, but on MetaWing, all archetypes until like 4x U-Wings at #56 are mostly all small based with an occasional large ship in a list, so it shouldn't impact them that much.

And recent upgrades haven't entirely dumped on Scum, Snap Shot probably benefits Scum more than any other faction. Scum offers some of the cheapest Snap Shot carriers available and some of the best synergies with Snap Shot. Seevor can use Snap Shot to jam, and can fly in a Snap Shot swarm with 4 Surveyors + an Outer Rim Pioneer for a potential 12 shots(!) in a single turn. Ketsu can use it with Zuckuss without penalty against ships that move before her as long as she has a blue maneuver dialed in, can combo it with Shadowcaster to tractor ships before engagement happens, and with the right setup, can even tractor a large base ship entirely by herself. Krassis can Snap Shot in the rear arc. Ahhav can throw 6 red dice at any ship larger than him. Graz can throw 7 red dice at any ship stupid enough to face away from him. Torani Kulda can double tap her ability without needing the setup for Cluster Missiles. Joy Rekkoff can pair it with Ion Torpedoes to shoot 2 buffed Snap Shots, though this is probably too expensive to use. Manaroo potentially doubles her damage output while adding a permanent pseudo-front arc no matter how her turret is aimed-- possibly too expensive at 56 points + upgrades (keeping her light with say IG-88D seems good?) but looks a little more usable than before as a fat support ship.

Epic is also an arena to watch for, Scum has some nasty nasty tricks up their sleeves that they just can't afford in a 200 point match. Nym + Andrasta Emon with loaded Boba (Crew) + Electro Proton Bomb + Cluster Mines can set up a giant 2 range bubble of denial practically anywhere on the map and can dump some mines to further disrupt the enemy's approach. If Snap Shot triggers on Huge Ships, Ahhav has the potential to be excellent filler. Drea can bolster the offenses of an entire swarm of generics. Tac Scrambler Slavers can form a massive wall for Drea and other important support ships to hide behind while advancing towards the opponent. Dace can be paired with any source of ion to inflict massive energy disruption on huge ships. IG-88s can all flock together, with D riding his own ship or in a crew slot to stack the IG-88A/B/C abilities, such as on Boba Fett. Manaroo can supply a pair of extra Focus or Calculate tokens to C-ROCs to modify attacks with. A cloaked Quadjumper with Targeting Computer + Targeting Synchronizer could help to provide missile and torpedo boats with shots on important targets, such as huge ships. Stuff like that.

This is quite an astute review of Scum's strengths - Go @Enigami!