13 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

blew one up over round 1 and 2 while engaging them at extreme R3 with a Target Lock.

I don't know how you got all R3 shots with locks for 2 consecutive rounds, but you should not do more than 1 damage per shot. More is an outlier and makes your anecdote irrelevant.

14 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

Murdered Sun fac by engaging in a tight area oddly enough and outbidding them.

The maybe most relevant list is Sun + Chertek + Grievous, and that clocks in at 183pts.

In short: you should not be able to outbid them. Which again makes your anecdote not really relevant.

1 hour ago, Rangor said:

Cannot take anyone serious that starts like this.

You dont want to discuss.

Oh no, I've scared away someone I had no intention of debating over the fact that getting three to four actions a turn is broken

Chertek is too cheap (which I already said at immediate release)

Being forced to counter absolute gatekeepers (Ensnare Nantex) in list building already is not a good thing for the game!

On 10/1/2019 at 8:49 PM, feltipern1 said:

2) Sun Fac, without dedicated support for tractoring shenanigans, will be almost useless against medium base or large base ships, and there are a lot. Who knows - maybe preparing for facing Sun Fac might bump Scum squadbuilding up a notch (looking at you @Da_Brown_Bomber ), since one of their strengths is medium and large-base ships. Currently, even in Hyperspace, Scum have the Customized YT-1300, Jumpmaster 5K, and Firespray.

Having all 3 OT factions, but mostly playing Scum, one of the good things in 2nd edition I immensely enjoy is that Scum&Villainy's small snubfighters are fieldable. I always disliked Scum being reduced to almost exclusively big bases in 1st ed back then.

Now, if the Nantex really would displace the meta so much that you are forced to field medium or large bases, this would invalidate in

-Extended

52,6% of all Scum ships, leaving you with 4 5 medium bases and 5 4 large bases. *)

66% of all Hyperspace Scum, there isn't even any medium legal , leaving you with 1 medium and 2 large bases. *)

Pretty, pretty boring.

[*) Edit. Derp. As only one of my children plays the Firespray, I totally forgot that the flying trainer nowadays in 2nd ed is a medium base]

Minor point also: Though Medium and Large bases cannot be tractored by a lone Nantex, mediums have a problem if 2 Nantex or Nantex+TractorInflitrator show up.

And a Nantex can still unload it's Tractor token onto a non-small base. Both larger base sizes still have to deal with a potential 270arc turret. And most non small bases have low agility (often 1), thus melting fast against the accompanying Vultures, even without being Tractored.

51 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

I have the funny feeling Maul+Sense Tractor + Chertek + 4 vultures is pretty decent. Using those vultures to jam things up more. It's definitely not I6 though and prone to some counterplay.

Hey Blail, dont be giving my list away

Got two more games in today with it. Annihilted a Wat vulture swarm. Loss two vultures only before opponent just called game. He had Wat and 1.5 vultures left vs nearly full Maul, full chertek and two full vultures. Did some nasty tractoring of my own vultures. Bascally, barely missed arc with a vulture, so I barrel rolled backward right, then chertek tractored me left backward and gave me range 1 arc on vulture, lol, all while giving chertek bullseye with his crackshot. Something like this:

enemy vulture had struts and just turned on the rock.

Second game I just massacre 4 heroic t70s. We had 5 rounds of engagement, and I killed 3 T70s. Loss 1 vulture and 1 shield on Maul. Lots of tractoring by Maul in this game on rocks. T70s drop to 1 agility, vultures chew them up. And if they survived, they fly over asteroid and die or get no actions. I kept chertek out of the fight until just 2 t70s were left, then he came in and tractored one on a rock, then next round, vulture blocked t70, Chertek tractored it in his range 1 bullseye and Mauls range 1. Those two 1 rounded a full health t70. I got 7 total hits and opponent rolled a blank on first roll and a eyeball on his second roll.

I love 50pt chertek.

double post! drat!

30 minutes ago, Managarmr said:

Chertek is too cheap (which I already said at immediate release)

Being forced to counter absolute gatekeepers (Ensnare Nantex) in list building already is not a good thing for the game!

Having all 3 OT factions, but mostly playing Scum, one of the good things in 2nd edition I immensely enjoy is that Scum&Villainy's small snubfighters are fieldable. I always disliked Scum being reduced to almost exclusively big bases in 1st ed back then.

Now, if the Nantex really would displace the meta so much that you are forced to field medium or large bases, this would invalidate in

-Extended

52,6% of all Scum ships, leaving you with 4 medium bases and 5 large.

-Hyperspace

66% of all Hyperspace Scum, there isn't even any medium legal , leaving you with 3 large bases.

Pretty, pretty boring.

Minor point also: Though Medium and Large bases cannot be tractored by a lone Nantex, mediums have a problem if 2 Nantex or Nantex+TractorInflitrator show up.

And a Nantex can still unload it's Tractor token onto a non-small base. Both larger base sizes still have to deal with a potential 270arc turret. And most non small bases have low agility (often 1), thus melting fast against the accompanying Vultures, even without being Tractored.

There’s also worth noting that due to the trademarked barrel-roll of the Starviper, the Ensnarathon Nantex is an extremely hard counter to it. And by extremely hard counter, I mean it’s ridiculously easy for the Nantex to tractor the Starvipe completely out of position, or into obstacles, and all while shifting the Starviper’s firing arc by 45-degrees. Basically, what makes the Starviper a joy to fly ends up being precisely why you don’t ever want to fly one against the Nantex.

9 minutes ago, It’s One Of Ours said:

There’s also worth noting that due to the trademarked barrel-roll of the Starviper, the Ensnarathon Nantex is an extremely hard counter to it. And by extremely hard counter, I mean it’s ridiculously easy for the Nantex to tractor the Starvipe completely out of position, or into obstacles, and all while shifting the Starviper’s firing arc by 45-degrees. Basically, what makes the Starviper a joy to fly ends up being precisely why you don’t ever want to fly one against the Nantex.

Im pretty sure you still tractor them with the 1-straight

5 minutes ago, wurms said:

Im pretty sure you still tractor them with the 1-straight

Nope, you use the bank template.

5 hours ago, Managarmr said:

-Hyperspace

66% of all Hyperspace Scum, there isn't even any medium legal , leaving you with 3 large bases

Ekhm... Firespray?

On the other hand - played against Sun Fac yesterday using big ships. It's not like auto loose for him - he still can use tractor-reposition to arc doge and handle tracotr to big ship, firing 2/3/4/dice (bullseye). He doesn't have +1 dice and big ship isn't tractored but it still is an even fight. Smart Sun Fac player will keep bumping big ship (no shots fired) unless he can Tracotr himself out of arc and shoot for free.

24 minutes ago, Lyynark said:

Nope, you use the bank template.

True, and a ruling/faq that imho should be reversed.

Another partial-list building counter to Sun Fac, is "Luke Gunner" on a rebel YT, i.e. "Ensnare" has to at least match his price-point.

A good analysis. A couple of observations

On ‎9‎/‎30‎/‎2019 at 8:50 PM, wurms said:

Below, we have Luke, outside range 3. He wants to stay away from Sun Fac range 1, so he does the slowest maneuver he can, a 1 straight. But if Luke did math, it doesn't matter what move he did, cause he is getting tractored by Sun Fac.

If Luke moves 1 straight + his 1 base, that is 2 base lengths he moved. Sun Fac just needs a tad more than 3 base lengths to reach range 1. So even if Sun Fac dials in a 1 hard (1 base + 1 hard turn slight movement, lets call it qtr base length) + his tractored barrel roll 1 base + 1 straight. Sun Fac as now gone a tad over 3 base lengths and has range 1 on Luke.

That isn't, technically, the slowest Luke can go. With the starting geometry you've drawn, I'm not sure it would be clear or not but it's certainly a lot more of a gnat's wing question, but if trying to slow down, Luke is likely to do a speed 1 straight and barrel roll back.

This does take his action, but he has two force tokens and his ability allowing him to be liberal spending them - essentially a free focus to all intents and purposes - and if he does manage to stick at range 2, he's facing a primary-2 attacker to his 2 agility defending, and has a 3-dice attack to a 2 dice defence in return.

On ‎9‎/‎30‎/‎2019 at 8:50 PM, wurms said:

Lets assume you have Sense equipped on Luke and see Sun is doing a 1 hard left. You have read or been told that you need to get directly behind Sun Fac as he cannot turn his turret to the rear. That is the safety zone. So, you 4 straight and boost. Aha! Did it! Or did you?

Since that's moving - deliberately - to avoid getting a shot in the hopes of not getting shot back, I'm not sure that's a great example. If you're basically just running, then you might as well bank or even turn to one side then boost, and if you've guessed right (i.e. the way Sun Fac didn't turn) then there's no way he can get a shot on you, much less a tractor token. That's essentially a 'no score draw' for the round, though, and doesn't help anyone except maybe buy time for Luke to recover shields if he has R2-D2 equipped.

On ‎9‎/‎30‎/‎2019 at 8:50 PM, wurms said:

There are few safe zones when approaching Sun Fac. Luckily, we get to bring more ships with us!

I think that's a key one. If you're that scared of Sun Fac, then he needs to be swatted as quickly as possible - whilst you have your full squad available, and even if you have to accept you're sacrificing someone in the attack. The thing is, yes, that may mean an ace squad trading an ace for him, but if you're trading (say) a 55 point Soontir Fel in return for a 78 point Sun Fac.....that's a net gain for you. Especially in an aces-and-big-ship list where squishing one Nantex may leave the bigger ship immune to Ensnare if there are only one or two (as appropriate to size) Ensnare-capable bugs left.

On ‎10‎/‎1‎/‎2019 at 3:47 AM, Boom Owl said:

One thing i will say is without ensnare and with fully execute words it could have been a genuinely interesting CIS striker with a turret and a bullseye.

I've been flying 5 Hive Guards with just Gravetic Deflection and it's surprisingly good fun. They feel like a dangerous enough and elusive enough squad to be a challenging opponent without enemies having to worry about being tractored themselves. Having them circle-strafing round you and zipping into range 1 whilst their mates shield them with tractor pulses from further away is nasty, and the whole thing gives a real "I'm covered in Bees!!!!!" feel to it.

23 hours ago, Okapi said:

Sun Fac is not a problem. He's a a 4 HP, often tokenless ship at 78 point. Sure, he's great against trip aces, but frankly that sort of list deserves a little setback for once. There's plenty of tools you could use against him, not just swarms or I6s with a bid.

• Bring gas clouds, grab Sun's biggest rock at deployment and Seismic it away at first opportunity, dealing with the rest as you move. Bonus! Sun has to scramble to get away from exploding rocks (again, 4 HP), and any Proton Bombs you might have are potentially awful for him.
• Bring back Quadjumpers! Have him taste his own tractor medicine. Maybe Unkar Plutt, seeing as he becomes a tiny little aces against I1 drones?
• Republic Palpatine, Asajj Ventress, anything that can give him stress is decent.
• Pretty sure he hates Lambdas. Big lump of cheap, tough, double-gunned immovable rock. Cover the flanks with some cheap TIEs or something.

One of the squads I've seen here and there which really has no trouble with him is missile-armed TIE/sf. Passive Sensors/Concussion Missiles can form a 'dragnet' and slow roll in without worrying about the normal initiative games for acquiring locks; it's hard for Sun Fac to avoid more than 1-2 arcs, and even a pair of locked concussion missiles can really ruin the day of an unshielded fighter.

20 hours ago, HamStarooh said:

My question is,

is gravitic deflection worth it?

On Ensnare ships? Not sure. As an alternative to Ensnare? Heck yes. Especially in multiples - getting yourself in a situation where the ship being tractored is not the one being fired on is great; as you get your full agility and potentially multiple rerolls to boot.

2 hours ago, Blail Blerg said:

You want to be having the first engagement at R3 me thinks.

Definitely. 'Outside range 3' to range 3 pretty much becomes a 'count to 11' game - albeit at an angle and using obstacles to avoid straight lines. And at range 3, yes, Sun Fac is pretty bloody useless - the odds of a bullseye at that range are low (especialy since you can't turn when boosting) so you're looking at a 2-dice shot against someone with generally 3-4 defence dice, whilst return fire is likely to be coming in 3-4 dice lumps.

5 hours ago, Nyxen said:

Because being able to boost or roll, rotate your turret indicator, tractor your r1 opponent, and maybe get a focus token seems like a bit much.

I would argue that "boost/roll & rotate" is not exactly a multiple action - since the turret slew is compulsory, you're often constrained which way you can reposition the ship. It is probably better than one action but I'm not convinced it's as good as two as their intertwined nature means a lot of options are useless.

In and of itself, compare to Soontir Fel/Predator who can boost, then roll (or vice-versa), then receive a focus in a pseudo-focus-action, then reroll an attack die in a pseudo-target-lock, for a similar number of 'actions'.

Sun Fac gets better repositioning (because you can effectively roll twice or boost twice depending on how the repositions line up and won't be stressed from the previous turn) but Soontir Fel is better off from a dice-fettling perspective (because he can use his bullseye much more reliably due to turning when boosting and can choose to use his ability to focus/evade instead if that's more useful).

16 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Sun Fac gets better repositioning (because you can effectively roll twice or boost twice depending on how the repositions line up and won't be stressed from the previous turn) but Soontir Fel is better off from a dice-fettling perspective (because he can use his bullseye much more reliably due to turning when boosting and can choose to use his ability to focus/evade instead if that's more useful).

This doesn't take into account that repositioning an opponent's ship with perfect information more than makes up for his constraints. Why roll dice when you can roll your opponent onto a rock/out of arc?

Aside from pushing someone onto a rock (which I agree is good but is not always an option), I'm not convinced that repositioning yourself once and your opponent once is necessarily that much better than repositioning yourself twice; any I6 pilot with that much manoeuvrability is always looking to use that perfect information to sideslip their opponent's arc of fire.

The list of pilots who can reposition twice post-move and still have meaningful dice modifiers isn't huge, but it's not tiny either - other than Fel, Anakin (with the right force talent whatever he's flying but admittedly doing it in a Y-wing will take some skills!), and stapled-on-afterburners Vader are all Initiative 6 so the same arguments apply.

4 hours ago, Managarmr said:

Chertek is too cheap (which I already said at immediate release)

Being forced to counter absolute gatekeepers (Ensnare Nantex) in list building already is not a good thing for the game!

Having all 3 OT factions, but mostly playing Scum, one of the good things in 2nd edition I immensely enjoy is that Scum&Villainy's small snubfighters are fieldable (1). I always disliked Scum being reduced to almost exclusively big bases in 1st ed back then.

Now, if the Nantex really would displace the meta so much that you are forced to field medium or large bases, this would invalidate in

-Extended

52,6% of all Scum ships, leaving you with 4 medium bases and 5 large. (2)

-Hyperspace

66% of all Hyperspace Scum, there isn't even any medium legal , (3) leaving you with 3 large bases.

Pretty, pretty boring.

Minor point also: Though Medium and Large bases cannot be tractored by a lone Nantex, mediums have a problem if 2 Nantex or Nantex+TractorInflitrator show up. (4)

And a Nantex can still unload it's Tractor token onto a non-small base. (5) Both larger base sizes still have to deal with a potential 270arc turret. And most non small bases have low agility (often 1), thus melting fast against the accompanying Vultures, (6) even without being Tractored.

First, I would heartily disagree with Ensnare Nantexes being "absolute gatekeepers". Also...

1) I agree - having a full range of small ships that are playable is definitely better for Scum. I was a primary-Scum player in 1.0 as well, though I've switched up for 2.0 for the time being, because Resistance and Separatists are just more fun right now. I build the occasional Scum list to fly, but overall, the faction just doesn't quite cut it at this stage of the development of 2.0.

2) Probably my largest quibble. Yes, you lose over half of your Scum ships, but the ones that are left are pretty hard to deal with using a single bug, in many cases. The Lancer is probably the one I'd be most concerned with, since it can move faster than most of the other large-base ships, and with better results. Plus, it has Asajj, who can equip Heightened Perception, get fairly close to Sun Fac, and then engage at I7, which would do quite a bit of damage, either with the front-arc primary or the turret (4 dice or 3 dice, if I remember correctly). As a bonus, you get a Large base ship that's fairly tanky.

3) Currently, the Firespray is hyperspace legal, as was already pointed out this thread. With this and the next wave's release, two more large base ships are going to be entering the format. Sun Fac will not prevail forever.

4) Yes, that does pose a problem, but remember that over half of your list points are going to be dedicated to enabling that play style - for two 4-hull ships with no shields that have to basically stay in tandem to do anything. The Tractor-equipped Infiltrator may be more of a concern, but it has limited utility - to use Ensnaring Nantexes effectively, you have to move fast and hope that you're predicting your opponent's moves correctly. This is very hard to do with Force-reposition Jedi, for example - Obi Wan is near impossible when equipped with the move-changing Astromech, and Anakin a little less so.

5) Yes, but as per 2.0 rules, the tractor tokens don't stay. You have to be able to get at least 2 to stick for a medium base, and a near-impossible 3 to stick for a large base. That's a dedicated two-Nantex attack on a single ship, while it's more than likely that your opponent's going to have at least 2/3 of his or her list still available to flank or attack from the back.

6) Vultures in a list like this would be fairly poorly equipped. You could fit a maximum of three with ESC and Struts as the other half, since your most likely Nantex candidates, Chertek and Sun Fac, are going to cost you (assuming Ensnare is stapled to each), a total of 127 points. That's with only Ensnare on each.

4 hours ago, It’s One Of Ours said:

There’s also worth noting that due to the trademarked barrel-roll of the Starviper, the Ensnarathon Nantex is an extremely hard counter to it. And by extremely hard counter, I mean it’s ridiculously easy for the Nantex to tractor the Starvipe completely out of position, or into obstacles, and all while shifting the Starviper’s firing arc by 45-degrees. Basically, what makes the Starviper a joy to fly ends up being precisely why you don’t ever want to fly one against the Nantex.

Use Dalan Oberos!!!

The problem is that Dalan's ability triggers after he moves, whilst Ensnare happens at the end of the activation phase - you can't use his ability to reactively turn 'back the way you came'.

7 hours ago, Zazaa32 said:

Funny to see that when Nantex came out it got so much s**t being overpriced and all that and few weeks later it is NPE!

Well im still yet to try it out, so I cant say anything on that, but it is pretty funny how fast opinions change.

That kind of speaks to the odd nature of the ship, though. Nantex is the kind of ship which can't really be evaluated out simply by thinking about it, it'll have to be felt-out on table. Like, it's hard to have a theoretical understanding of how much of a detriment the rotate-to-boost-or-barrel-roll is going to be, how often the tractor would need to be pointing in the wrong direction. Some ships (Y-Wings, Hyenas) can probably be mostly correctly priced before release, but Nantex really needs lots of experience and actual play.

My own personal take on Nantex pricing was that they felt pre-nerfed after playtesting (high cost, no mod slot where they were probably intended to have a mod slot--if not two), and that was good, because Nantex Tractor Hades would probably be less bad. As time has passed, I'm even more convinced that Sun Fac got pretty big nerfs before they were released. Looking at the Quickbuilds, Sun Fac for 3 threat with Predator, Ensnare, Afterburners, and Shield Upgrade, they clearly thought this would be a ship worth around 75 points. It'd be 94 in live points. To get it that far off really shows out how hard this ship is to price correctly on low reps. It takes a lot of folks flying them to get a good picture of it.

Also, most of the folks calling it NPE aren't same people who thought it was overpriced. Like, when half the internet says pineapple on pizza is good, and half says it's bad, it's not that folks can't make up their minds or folks change their opinions, but these are different folks.

3 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

On Ensnare ships? Not sure. As an alternative to Ensnare? Heck yes. Especially in multiples - getting yourself in a situation where the ship being tractored is not the one being fired on is great; as you get your full agility and potentially multiple rerolls to boot.

In Ensnare ship i see it also, if you tractor yourself to be at range 3 you have 3 dices with 1 reroll at least.

but maybe for 1 point more you can put outmanouver....

3 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

I've been flying 5 Hive Guards with just Gravetic Deflection and it's surprisingly good fun. They feel like a dangerous enough and elusive enough squad to be a challenging opponent without enemies having to worry about being tractored themselves. Having them circle-strafing round you and zipping into range 1 whilst their mates shield them with tractor pulses from further away is nasty, and the whole thing gives a real "I'm covered in Bees!!!!!" feel to it.

The Nantex without Ensnare really has potential to be a mostly wholesome ship. Highly mobile 2-dice turret, a little bit squishier than an A-Wing, but not by much (gets noticeably squishier if it doesn't run GravDef), and a nasty bullseye surprise. I think the overall package is a little better than an RZ-2, but not unreasonably.

Maybe the tractor/rotate on a bump is excessive in non-ensnare builds, but it's hard to tell, given Ensnare's effect on the Nantex's role.

4 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

One of the squads I've seen here and there which really has no trouble with him is missile-armed TIE/sf. Passive Sensors/Concussion Missiles can form a 'dragnet' and slow roll in without worrying about the normal initiative games for acquiring locks; it's hard for Sun Fac to avoid more than 1-2 arcs, and even a pair of locked concussion missiles can really ruin the day of an unshielded fighter.

I keep drooling over Homing Missile Passive Sensors SFs.

23 minutes ago, HamStarooh said:

In Ensnare ship i see it also, if you tractor yourself to be at range 3 you have 3 dices with 1 reroll at least.

but maybe for 1 point more you can put outmanouver....

Nantex can't accomplish anything with Outmaneuver. It specifies a front-arc weapon, and Nantex don't have a front-arc weapon. They have a turret, and a bullseye. These things are different.

1 hour ago, feltipern1 said:

2) Probably my largest quibble. Yes, you lose over half of your Scum ships, but the ones that are left are pretty hard to deal with using a single bug, in many cases. The Lancer is probably the one I'd be most concerned with, since it can move faster than most of the other large-base ships, and with better results. Plus, it has Asajj, who can equip Heightened Perception, get fairly close to Sun Fac, and then engage at I7, which would do quite a bit of damage, either with the front-arc primary or the turret (4 dice or 3 dice, if I remember correctly). As a bonus, you get a Large base ship that's fairly tanky.

I...I think you completely missed the point of his complaint.

PROCEED WITH CAUTION HIGHLY SILLY POST INCOMING

::insert Leonard Nimoy voice beginning now::

Perhaps it stands to reason then that Sun Fac is FFG's singularly inept attempt to rebalance the entire game. Applying multiple deductive conclusions, what we have collectively ascertained is;

1) Sun Fac Murders Acewing

2) Sun Fac + Swarm Murders Large Ships

3) Sun Fac Murders 3 AG Jedi

4) Sun Fac Will Be Teh Best Point Fortress Even With Point Adjusts

5) Sun Fac Makes the Game Not Fun In The Hands of a Seasoned Player

6) Sun Fac Makes the Game Not Fun As An Enemy of a New Player

7) Sun Fac Hates Your Mother And Is Punishing You for Her Sins

8) Sun Fac Provokes Intense Fear of One Less Agility Uncertainties in What Was Once a Certain World Of Blank Green Dice

::insert smug Captain Kirk voice::

I don't give a **** . I'm just going to point 5 Dead Man's Switch Cartel Marauders at him.

https://imgur.com/a/82TdCwg

heres an imgur gallery thats hopefully useful for someone

this is also worth reading if you're on on team non-ensnare nantexes, because pinpoint tractor array remains still pretty dumb so long as it doesn't require you to fully execute

32 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

I...I think you completely missed the point of his complaint.

Possibly. I couldn't really tell what the actual issue was due to a lack of clarity in writing, so I was going on what I assumed to be the case.