30 minutes ago, Revanur said:

I would prefer more options for the B-wing over being priced into taking an upgrade. And as the b's config is pure upgrade I would say it should cost points and not be taxed into the chassis.

The X-Wing S-Foils are also a strict upgrade. So are the Gunboat Configs. They're still there because it's part of the chassis and because it's how the unit is meant to be played .

I don't want to have the option of flying X-Wings with a 2-primary for less points, because that's not what they are .

I, for one, am very excited for badass B-Wings. I’ve been trying to put cannons on B-Wings for ages, now it will finally be worthwhile.

There are a couple things I would advise everyone to keep in mind when considering pricing.

1) B-Wings have notoriously poop dials. Giving them a ton of linked actions seems powerful, but in reality you’re just adding some options at the cost of being married to your 5 blue maneuvers. (Unless your B-Wing is named Ten Numb.) Giving a one agility ship a linked evade is almost irrelevant.

2) Cannons already cost points, and those points aren’t worth it on a stock B-Wing. If the config isn’t free, it runs the risk of becoming a sunk-cost upgrade.

3) All B-Wings should be equipping cannons, because cannons and the spinny, flappy bits are what make them awesome!

With these things in mind, my ideal price model would look something like:

• Config costs 0 points. - We want to encourage spending points on cannons.

• Generics go up one point - This accounts for the config and further differentiates then from X-Wings. If you’re bringing a B-Wing, you should spring for a couple more points and equip a cannon.

•Ten Numb up to 50 - He loves the new config in every possible way.

• Ion cannons and HLCs come down one point each - These (and Autoblasters) are the canonical B-Wing cannons that are built in to every ship. They need to come down or else we’ll see a ton of B-Wings with just a Tractor beam equipped.

Possible builds include:

Ten Numb (50), Config (0), Ion Cannons (4), Autoblasters (2), FCS (2), Marksmanship (1) - 59 points, I will play this combo regardless of points just because it touches me in all the thematic places.

Blue Squaddie (42), Config (0), Tractor Beam (2), HLC (3), Passive Sensors (3) - 50 points, this is a bit Yikes! Maybe tractor beam or Blue Squaddies need to go up one more point?

1 hour ago, ClassicalMoser said:

The X-Wing S-Foils are also a strict upgrade. So are the Gunboat Configs. They're still there because it's part of the chassis and because it's how the unit is meant to be played .

I don't want to have the option of flying X-Wings with a 2-primary for less points, because that's not what they are .

Yes, but those come with the ship. Those ships were designed with those configs. The B-Wing wasn’t. Plus, I’m not sure going back to the “buy the fix pack to play your favorite ship” is a positive thing.

I think Stabilized S-foils should cost and the base chassis priced on its own. That way, anybody grabbing a B-Wing expansion can play it fine out of the package, then they can get the Stabilized S-foils to expand the B-Wing rather then just make it work.

1 hour ago, Revanur said:

Edit: if we take your other ship examples through to extreme to match flavor: The Falcon should not be able to rotate its turrets without having a gunner equipped. Gameplay > Flavour

One of Han's modifications, or maybe it was Lando's modifications (in the Legends continuity at least) was the ability to control the turrets from the cockpit. having turret gunners isn't required, but it allows the Han and Chewie to concentrate on flying and/or programing the nav computer. As well as letting the turrets shoot in different directions. When slaved to the cockpit they both fire in the same direction at any given moment.

As for the B-Wing's S-Foil card being a "pure upgrade" and thus should cost points, as others mentioned it doesn't benefit all B-Wing pilots equally. Braylen Stramm for example will either spend all his time stressed thus preforming white maneuvers and unable to fully take advantage of the Stabilized S-Foils, or he'll be able to take full advantage but will be doing blue maneuvers most of the time. Either way, he's slow, predictable, and doesn't really benefit beyond the ability to double tap if the S-Foils are open. This is because he can reroll 2 dice during any attack or defense if stressed.

Ten Numb on the other hand can make full use of the upgrade practically every single turn due to being able to spend Stress as if it was a Focus token. The added mobility options will help with dodging arcs while reloading, repositioning for an attack run, and so forth. Imagine doing a barrel roll to arc dodge, linking into a red Lock, firing a torpedo at an enemy ship, then opening up with an ion cannon blast which you can mod as if you had focus. And if you didn't need to spend it on an attack, you could still use your stress to Focus during defense. Although it is generally best used on the attack.

The two generic pilots get more benefit then Braylen does, but not quite as much as Ten Numb.

So, what price should the upgrade be? If it's too cheep, Ten Numb may become broken. But if it's too expensive, it'll never see play on anyone else. Possibly never see play at all. And keep in mind that to get the most use out of it, you do need to invest in a cannon upgrade or two as well.

Oooor, you can make it a 0 cost upgrade and adjust the price of each pilot to reflect how much Stabilized S-Foils benefits them. WHich is the same tactic that was used for the X-Wing's s-foils. Yes, landing struts and grappling struts have a cost. But those also benefit all the pilots equally.

7 hours ago, Phelan Boots said:

Possible builds include:

Ten Numb (50), Config (0), Ion Cannons (4), Autoblasters (2), FCS (2), Marksmanship (1) - 59 points, I will play this combo regardless of points just because it touches me in all the thematic places.

Blue Squaddie (42), Config (0), Tractor Beam (2), HLC (3), Passive Sensors (3) - 50 points, this is a bit Yikes! Maybe tractor beam or Blue Squaddies need to go up one more point?

Well, for starters you don't need to decrease the cost of cannons. HLC is 4, Ion is 5. There's so much stuff it's easy to mix up.

To me, the interesting build is Passive + Ion. I think Ion Control is an under-rated thing, but it is held back by the lack of damage in Ion Control lists. But adding a bunch of 3-4 dice primary attacks, even if mostly unmodded, provides the damage Ion has been missing.

Perhaps we'll learn what the devs meant when they said "You don't want a game where Ion is good."

Ion is decent. But it seems to be rather situational. And the situation doesn't crop up very often that makes 1 damage and *maybe* ionizing the target a better choice then 3 or 4 damage (potentially). Every time I've put an ion cannon on my B wing so far, I end up never firing it. To the point where I stopped considering it, for the most part. Maybe that'll change with the new config card. I mean, getting an Ion blast in as a bonus attack sounds more useful then doing the ion blast instead of a primary or heavy laser canon blast. Might start trying to use the other situational cannons too. I don't use Jamming Beam or Tractor Beam because doing damage is generally more useful. But doing damage and tractoring or jamming? That could be useful to do.

On 12/19/2019 at 2:55 PM, Faerie1979 said:

O.o YASB 2.0 has added the config card... and set it's cost at 200 points. Which I doubt will be the actual cost, since if it was then you could only play it in an Epic match.

On 12/19/2019 at 3:56 PM, PaulRuddSays said:

That's typical in YASB until the points are known, that way you're not building things expecting they'll fit when the prices are totally unknown.

Bossk in a Z95 was also on YASB. For 666 points. He's been removed for some reason, but he'll be back.

19 hours ago, Phelan Boots said:

With these things in mind, my ideal price model would look something like:

• Config costs 0 points. - We want to encourage spending points on cannons.

Possible builds include:

Ten Numb (50), Config (0), Ion Cannons (4), Autoblasters (2), FCS (2), Marksmanship (1) - 59 points, I will play this combo regardless of points just because it touches me in all the thematic places.

Blue Squaddie (42), Config (0), Tractor Beam (2), HLC (3), Passive Sensors (3) - 50 points, this is a bit Yikes! Maybe tractor beam or Blue Squaddies need to go up one more point?

Honestly the way to fix the s-foils is by giving them points, not by raising prices on tractor beam cannons or even the bare pilots. If anything cannons are slightly overcosted as it is.

They're easily worth a few points, at least 2-3 for a config with all upside and no downside, if not 5. Config at 3 and blue squaddie still at 41 stops that particular 4x shenanigans. It's still a steal at 3 points, and doesn't nerf OTHER PLATFORMS for the sins of the B-wing.

12 hours ago, Faerie1979 said:

Every time I've put an ion cannon on my B wing so far, I end up never firing it.

Most of my Ion play has been multiple Ion Scyks + Fenn Rau (to provide the damage the Scyks lack). As a 33 point ship, IC Spacers aren't too bad. Decent defensive statline, nice dial if you aren't stressed, and a reasonable gun. When you've got 3 or 4 Ion Cannon attacks in a turn, it tends to get a few Ion tokens onto defenders.

If it was a B-Wing without S-Foils using Ion weapons, that'd be terrible. You can't spend 75% of your list on 1-damage attacks and expect to win a game. Having enough damage is necessary. But with S-Foils: two no-modifiers attacks (primary and Ion) has a slightly higher expected damage than just spending the Lock on the primary attack.

Jam is going to be really common, since why not? Not only is the card free, but the attack is free. RIP Reinforce ships.

As to Tractor... I go back and forth. A large part of what makes tractor deadly is using it at high-enough initiative. If you can put someone on a rock or otherwise move them somewhere they don't have a shot, that's BRUTAL. But B-Wings seem likely to be low-Init tractor, which is a lot less potent. But lowering defenses to light someone up with a squad of B-Wing attacks could be strong too, particularly if you also close the range band distance. A defender who goes from Range 2 with 2 green dice to Range 1 with 1 green die is in a world of hurt.

My VCX and Y-Wing will occasionally fire off an ion cannon blast. But that's mostly because the turret is the only thing that can attack. Provided the enemy is close enough that is. If you can fire an attack that can potentially do 2+ damage, it always feels more worthwhile then a 1 damage+ (maybe) ion attack.

20 minutes ago, Faerie1979 said:

My VCX and Y-Wing will occasionally fire off an ion cannon blast. But that's mostly because the turret is the only thing that can attack. Provided the enemy is close enough that is. If you can fire an attack that can potentially do 2+ damage, it always feels more worthwhile then a 1 damage+ (maybe) ion attack.

I mean, I vastly prefer an Ion Cannon Turret to a Dorsal Turret. Having a 70% chance to deal a damage with a 3-dice Ion vs a (32+8)% chance to do a damage or two with a 2-dice Dorsal just seems better. That's a 30% miss rate compared to 60%. Not worth the 8% chance of 2 damage. The complaint "Oh, the turret will seldom inflict ions" doesn't make sense to me, since an Ion Turret attack roll that doesn't inflict an Ion token would likely be a total miss with a Dorsal.

2 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

I mean, I vastly prefer an Ion Cannon Turret to a Dorsal Turret. Having a 70% chance to deal a damage with a 3-dice Ion vs a (32+8)% chance to do a damage or two with a 2-dice Dorsal just seems better. That's a 30% miss rate compared to 60%. Not worth the 8% chance of 2 damage. The complaint "Oh, the turret will seldom inflict ions" doesn't make sense to me, since an Ion Turret attack roll that doesn't inflict an Ion token would likely be a total miss with a Dorsal.

Oh, I agree. Ion Canon Turret is far superior to Dorsal Turret. It averages out to about the same damage dealt (if it does damage), and has the potential to ionize an enemy. That can be rather amusing, such as when someone decides to tail you, and you manage to ionize them and get them to fly into a proton bomb. Or the rare occasion when you manage to get someone to fly off the map because you ionized them 2 or 3 turns in a row near the edge. But in general I find that if I'm given the choice of "1 damage plus maybe ion tokens" or "2 or 3 die attack that does nothing but damage", I will almost always chose the 2 or 3 die attack that only does damage.

13 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

The complaint "Oh, the turret will seldom inflict ions" doesn't make sense to me, since an Ion Turret attack roll that doesn't inflict an Ion token would likely be a total miss with a Dorsal.

It is a difference in perspective. You look at Ion weapons as a better attack with an okay chance of a control effect. Others focus on the control effect and base the upgrades' value on how reliably that effect is applied and don't see the strength of a high probability of getting a hit through. Allot of people also despise paper cutting their opponent's ships when they're under a time constraint.

Edit: That said paper cuts can be so easily mitigated (effectively ignored honestly) for so cheap right now doesn't help.

16 minutes ago, Hiemfire said:

It is a difference in perspective. You look at Ion weapons as a better attack with an okay chance of a control effect. Others focus on the control effect and base the upgrades' value on how reliably that effect is applied and don't see the strength of a high probability of getting a hit through. Allot of people also despise paper cutting their opponent's ships when they're under a time constraint.

Edit: That said paper cuts can be so easily mitigated (effectively ignored honestly) for so cheap right now doesn't help.

Yeah, there's going to be a few board states where a 2-dice normal attack will be better than a 3-dice Ion attack, but if you're trying to get a 2-dice attack to push 2 damage, you're probably in a "Hail Mary" situation anyhow. It's like, Boosting a 3-red ship into Range 1 for 4 unmodified dice is worse than a Focus at Range 2, unless you really need those 4 hits right now. Ion weapons can lead to similar situations.

But with S-Foils B-Wings potentially not needing to make that trade-off seems really good to me.

It will be good for the B-Wing to have a more defined role then "Slower and less maneuverable X-Wing".

WOO! The double tap comes to the B-Wing! These S-foils are gonna be great I'm glad they're primary fire -> cannon to avoid any tractor beam/HLC or range 1 primary fire shenanigans. The requiring of a target lock reins in the power of the card a bit.

I'm not points guru, but I definitely think these will have a cost attached since, unlike both flavors of X-Wing S-Foils, these directly increase the B-Wing's offensive potential not just from the bonus attack from the cannon, but also the reload action.

GIMME GIMME GIMME!!!!

(not gonna lie, I was KINDA hoping for something that dealt with hull orientation, but these are nice too

25 minutes ago, Kehl_Aecea said:

WOO! The double tap comes to the B-Wing! These S-foils are gonna be great I'm glad they're primary fire -> cannon to avoid any tractor beam/HLC or range 1 primary fire shenanigans.
[..]

Only the bonus attack as limitation.
The first attack can be whatever you want. You can totally do cannon > other cannon.

Will this config make the Bs the huge ship busters they are meant to be?

Going jaming beam then HLC can be really mean to a huge ship that relies on reinforce... or simply primary then HLC to push damage before the regen shields.

If you increase the cost of the B-Wing you will penalize the people who decide to fly it as is without the foils, so it would seem at this point that you would have to put a price on the foils. Giving the ability to double tap is always a plus,. It is more of a help to Ten than the generics and Braylan, but how do you show that in value? There does not seem to be a down side when comparing it to the T65/T70 wings, they both lose something to an extent, to balance what they gain.

I think even if the foils do get a cost on the upgrade the named pilots still take a small price hike which makes them discouraging without foils. That or we get an initiative scaled cost on the upgrade, but then it's going to cause problems with new i4+ pilots who might not value foils as much as Ten/Braylen and i3- pilots who value it more than the generics.

Ok some points estimates for the foils. We can do a little number crunching based on the threat level card we see. Moonsong has Elusive(3), Passive Sen(3), autoblaster(2), She is a autothruster(6) foils(?) threat level 3 . Each threat level is about 25 points so about 75.

Blade squadron shows a TL3. We cant see all of its slots, but we do know it starts at 43. Snap(7), angled def(6), if we use max for 2 remaining slots, looks like no second cannon, so HLC(4) and sensor advanced sen(10) We have 70 not counting the foils, so possible 5 for foils. plugging that in to Moonsong, make her 55 and 5 for foils would be 76. so foils could be about 5 points.

Have to remember TL is probably a range 70-75 so we do have some lee way

40 minutes ago, librarian101 said:

so foils could be about 5 points.

More likely, all B-Wings are going up 3-7 points and foils are free.

And they'll be included in future B-Wing printings, I hope...

3 minutes ago, ClassicalMoser said:

More likely, all B-Wings are going up 3-7 points and foils are free.

And they'll be included in future B-Wing printings, I hope...

If you do that then you penalize people for not using it, the last points increase forced them off the board as is, pricing the card gives the player much more flexibility in building his list.

On 12/20/2019 at 2:38 PM, SabineKey said:

Yes, but those come with the ship. Those ships were designed with those configs. The B-Wing wasn’t. Plus, I’m not sure going back to the “buy the fix pack to play your favorite ship” is a positive thing.

Oh I totally agree with this. I guess it's a stretch, but I'm really hoping future print runs of the B-Wing come with the foils...

34 minutes ago, ClassicalMoser said:

Oh I totally agree with this. I guess it's a stretch, but I'm really hoping future print runs of the B-Wing come with the foils...

That would be nice, but still not quite good enough to justify placing the foils cost on the base chassis itself,