So we’ve had a few weeks with the new rules and gas clouds. How are people reacting to the changes? Is it affecting the way your approaching/using the clouds now?

After playing 3 games, and watching a couple of others, I feel the change is certainly an interesting one. I had one opponent just risk it with an A-Wing trying to get into a better position only to go down to a R1 shot from a TIE S/F. Other times I’ve watched them not be shot at and much like a stress put a tough choice on the ship to either keep the strain or use the blue on the dial. So the overall effect seems to be positive making them a hazard and not just an inconvenience even for nimble fighters with easy mods like Jedi and Inquisitors.

The best thing about the change is that it has made players think. I believe that is a positive move, it is no longer just hurr durr through an obstacle. It can have severe effects if you risk it, as your example points out.

I've stopped seeing "always bring gas clouds" from every dumb player in the store.

is that a plus?

I’ve seen more obstacle variety again now. So I call that a win.

Clouds can now make sense, but for specific strategies not catch all

I keep thinking I'd love to see a change in obstacle selection rules.

Imagine if you could bring 0-1 Gas Clouds, 0-2 Asteroids, 0-2 Debris, but still had to bring 3. That means every list has to bring a mix, and any given table has at most 2 gas clouds. I think that would feel good.

I like that Gas Clouds exist as obstacles, and think they fill an interesting role as a powerfully defensive upgrade with lower overlap consequences. However, it's really silly to have 3 or 6 on the table at the same time.

Obstacle variety here has changed mildly, but bizarrely when their playing with them nothing changed.

Despite the declarations, I always saw people avoid them. They never wanted to lose their action. All setup they'd complain about the design of the gas clouds they themselves brought... And then never fly through one if they could avoid it. Really it was quite confusing.

But FFG gave them a placebo and surprise they all shut up? Oh well?

Mostly I miss the variety now. An obstacle is an obstacle is an obstacle. And it's more boring, and play delaying to have to resolve the new type as well.

Tldr: nothing changed, I just don't hear it talked about now 😅 😂

What did they change about gas clouds?

can we just admit cOlleCTivEly that the game is better as a whole with impactful terrain? good grief.

10 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

What did they change about gas clouds?

They give strain if you overlap them.

This is the way.... it should have been from the start.

1 hour ago, JJ48 said:

What did they change about gas clouds?

1 hour ago, Archangelspiv said:

They give strain if you overlap them.

This is the way.... it should have been from the start.

More precisely if you overlap or move through them you roll 1 attack die. On a hit or focus result you gain one strain. If you move through or overlap one while executing a maneuver you skip your Perform Action step.

Will say, would have liked it better for consistency if it just gave the token instead of having to roll for an ever weirder set of dice results.

but noooooooo we can't have uniformity/similarity of rules.

46 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

Will say, would have liked it better for consistency if it just gave the token instead of having to roll for an ever weirder set of dice results.

but noooooooo we can't have uniformity/similarity of rules.

There is actually a similarity in a way, in that each obstacle has you roll a die, and only has its additional effect (damage or strain) on a different subset of results.

17 minutes ago, Matanui3 said:

There is actually a similarity in a way, in that each obstacle has you roll a die, and only has its additional effect (damage or strain) on a different subset of results.

.... from a certain point of view...

and not from another.

No certain point of view about it. They operate uniformly.

Two assign red tokens

Two roll for damage

Two skip your action step

All have a dice roll.

Y'all wanted bland. Don't try to argue that y'all didn't get it 😂

On ‎1‎/‎26‎/‎2020 at 12:56 AM, theBitterFig said:

I like that Gas Clouds exist as obstacles, and think they fill an interesting role as a powerfully defensive upgrade with lower overlap consequences. However, it's really silly to have 3 or 6 on the table at the same time.

This. I've no problem with it being super-effective to hide behind them, because that's clever positioning on your part. My concern was that people could just fly into them (or through them) with next to no consequences and be basically invulnerable to primary-2 fire as a result.

6 hours ago, ForceSensitive said:

Y'all wanted bland. Don't try to argue that y'all didn't get it 😂

How is adding an additional mechanic neither of the other obstacles can do more bland?

Saying it's 'just another token' is just reductive. Strain is a different consideration to stress or damage. But I also think Strain works really well with the other gas cloud rules to create an interesting niche of balance.

Gas clouds are the only obstacle to give you an evade result if the shot is obstructed by them, but now they run the risk of reducing your agility too. If you aim to position yourself to get the obstruction, you're rewarded with an evade. But if you get it wrong, that advantage is immediately countered if not outright nullified by losing the bonus die. It's all playing around with the same idea.

If anything, having an obstacle that had no punishment for overlapping except removing your actions was 'more bland', because the other two obstacles do the same thing (with debris being potentially avoidable by anyone with a means of removing the stress or performing actions while stressed). How is an obstacle that does the same as the other two but less total more interesting than one that plays around with defence in a way neither of the other two do?

6 hours ago, GuacCousteau said:

How is adding an additional mechanic neither of the other obstacles can do more bland?

We're clearly of very different opinions.

My premise was entirely that having all obstacles have a equal punishment attached to flying through them WAS bland, and that having a dynamic terrain system where some pieces provided totally different challenges as well as opportunities was NOT. Old clouds were interesting, new clouds are bland.

I've been reading arguments for 'all obstacles have to punish equally' for months now and not a single one makes any sense. Nevermind the fact the clouds already did have a punishment(action loss) as you noted. And despite the complaints that they were everywhere, they weren't.

Or put it another way, X-wing is now the only wargame where all the terrain features are functionally identical and designed to create Binary Lane setup and not dynamic spaces. By comparison, it would be like having a ground based wargame where all units treated Lakes/Rivers the same as Trees, the same as Castle Walls. It is to me, for my opinion, now bland for this reason with the adjusted rule, because now their is too much commonality between the terrain elements of the game.

But this is the way y'all wanted them, so this is what we got now. Oh well.

It’s simple. The field needs around 6 spaces of no go to create diversity. If you made say a giant cardboard piece that was like light gas cloud - functioning like grassy terrain that would be fun.

But having no consequence flying thru terrain is just too much.

Needless to say I don’t have to tell you from experience that the game is not better with no obstacles.

On 1/25/2020 at 9:14 PM, Blail Blerg said:

I've stopped seeing "always bring gas clouds" from every dumb player in the store.

is that a plus?

Certainly it is for me!

Not that I'm a CIS player or anything like that...

3 minutes ago, Vector Strike said:

Certainly it is for me!

Not that I'm a CIS player or anything like that...

You know what’s weird for me to see?

People put grapples on every vulture. I feel like only 3 need them.

The rest don’t get the marginal value out of avoiding rocks

19 minutes ago, ForceSensitive said:

We're clearly of very different opinions.

My premise was entirely that having all obstacles have a equal punishment attached to flying through them WAS bland, and that having a dynamic terrain system where some pieces provided totally different challenges as well as opportunities was NOT. Old clouds were interesting, new clouds are bland.

I've been reading arguments for 'all obstacles have to punish equally' for months now and not a single one makes any sense. Nevermind the fact the clouds already did have a punishment(action loss) as you noted. And despite the complaints that they were everywhere, they weren't.

Or put it another way, X-wing is now the only wargame where all the terrain features are functionally identical and designed to create Binary Lane setup and not dynamic spaces. By comparison, it would be like having a ground based wargame where all units treated Lakes/Rivers the same as Trees, the same as Castle Walls. It is to me, for my opinion, now bland for this reason with the adjusted rule, because now their is too much commonality between the terrain elements of the game.

But this is the way y'all wanted them, so this is what we got now. Oh well.

But they don't all punish equally.

Anyhow, the big flaw in your argument is how often 6 gas clouds got put on the table.

Having a mix of soft terrain and hard terrain is good. Having 6 soft terrain is worse than having the soft terrain be a bit harder. Having only lakes and no trees and no walls sucks worse than having the trees and walls and lakes being too samey.

Nothing is more bland than 6 of the same obstacle.

8 hours ago, theBitterFig said:

But they don't all punish equally.

Anyhow, the big flaw in your argument is how often 6 gas clouds got put on the table.

Having a mix of soft terrain and hard terrain is good. Having 6 soft terrain is worse than having the soft terrain be a bit harder. Having only lakes and no trees and no walls sucks worse than having the trees and walls and lakes being too samey.

Nothing is more bland than 6 of the same obstacle.

Would this still hold true if, instead of 6 clouds, they were 6 asteroids or 6 debris fields? Personally, I've seen both far more often than I've seen 6 gas clouds.

9 hours ago, Blail Blerg said:

You know what’s weird for me to see?

People put grapples on every vulture. I feel like only 3 need them.

The rest don’t get the marginal value out of avoiding rocks

I understand, but would as a counter-argument offer a similar conversation when trying a Striker swarm with a load of seismic charges:

" But four copies of the upgrade is eight seismic charges!"

"Yes."

"That's more seismic charges than there are rocks to blow up with them!"

"Yes, but this way, the odds are in my favour that the TIE striker in a position to want a seismic charge will be one of the ones who has them. If only one carries them , they inevitably die first ."

1 hour ago, Magnus Grendel said:

I understand, but would as a counter-argument offer a similar conversation when trying a Striker swarm with a load of seismic charges:

" But four copies of the upgrade is eight seismic charges!"

"Yes."

"That's more seismic charges than there are rocks to blow up with them!"

"Yes, but this way, the odds are in my favour that the TIE striker in a position to want a seismic charge will be one of the ones who has them. If only one carries them , they inevitably die first ."

Idk. I put my grapplees on rocks and they stay there, very happy. They're blessed with food, drink and sunshine.

Eh, grapples are just 1p each