It's perhaps the worst upgrade in the game, but I like exploring sideways uses for wonky cards. Maybe we can figure out why FFG made it so expensive.

I forget who suggested it (probably @theBitterFig or @Hiemfire ?), but Angled Deflectors + Fanatical on a one-shield ship starts it out Fanatical. Then add Advanced Optics and always focus, or lock when appropriate; never ever reinforce. Scorch becomes a 42-point well-modded attacker, with the focus available as a fall-back for defense (again, we ignore reinforce as it's bad for this ship; its only role is starting out fanatical). And no shields. Essentially it's a TIE Fighter with fairly consistent damage on its 2-, or 3-, or 4-dice attacks.

I'm curious where the points sweet spot lands for a build like this. At current points IMO it's a really entertaining gimmick, but probably too easily erased in this meta. But for casual exploration that's okay.

I'm interested in other gimmick builds for Angled Deflectors; not even necessarily good (I don't care if it's meta-worthy), just interesting enough to try in a casual game. I thought about giving it to Rush, but the TIE/vn lacks a mod slot. So far Redline still seems to have the most potential, yet it's still probably a poor choice for him.

There's also dumb spam lists, which might tell us about the cost. 3 points seems high, but it cuts out a few spam lists from getting 1 more ship. But even at 3 points, consider the following:

• 8 reinforcing Z-95s (rebel or scum)?
• 4 starvipers?
• 6 autoblaster m-3as?
• 4 kihraxz and a 5th filler ship (m3a or z95)?
• 6 HWKs?
• 3 Firesprays?
• 6 TIE Aggressors, 4 with Ion and 2 with Dorsal?
• 4 TIE Phantoms? (evade from cloak, reinforce on regular rounds; could consistently shed a damage or two from shots)
• 4 Selfless T-65s? (lots of damage blocking and redirection)
• 4 U-Wings?
• 4 Heroic T-70s?
• 5 TIE/fos with Fanatical + Advanded Optics (one of which is Scorch)
• 6 TIE/fos with Fanatical (one of which is Muse or Null)
• 5 Delta-7 Aethersprites (Hrm... CLT would likely be better, though choosing deflectors means you have a mob of tanky swarmers with 1 force dice mod each)
• 5 Belbullabs, one of which is soulless (IMO impervium plating is better)

IMO for these 2- and 3-agility ships, it's likely that focusing is just consistently better than reinforcing, probably giving even odds or better damage reduction, with the option to spend on offense. Or just evading, when that's an option. And then you can shove another ship or some other upgrades into the swarm because you're not throwing away points and a shield on gaining reinforce.

The only time reinforce is better for most of these options is against other swarms, to drag things out and make them waste additional shots. The Fanatical FO swarm has the most potential to get use out of it, but ironically they're not planning on reinforcing, just using the upgrade to hit the table at full attack strength (and higher fragility).

Maybe one of the 1-agility fat swarms like Y-Wings or Scurrgs is why we're paying an offensive 6 points per ship on those. Reinforce helps them a good deal more because 1 agility fails so often and they have the health to absorb many shots. Pricing it at 6 points cuts out one ship from the swarm. That's an interesting idea for why it's priced so high, but I wonder if people would even bother to fly a reinforcing Y-Wing swarm. Is 6 beefy reinforcing Y-Wings with no dice mods and no turrets that scary? Or is it something other than swarms that has FFG worried, like Redline?

Things to ponder and explore.

1 minute ago, Wazat said:

I forget who suggested it (probably @theBitterFig or @Hiemfire ?), but Angled Deflectors + Fanatical on a one-shield ship starts it out Fanatical.

Whether or not I observed the interaction, I wouldn't ever use it. The actual boost to survival time isn't that large, requires a specific defensive action, and costs too many extra points.

In general, I don't think mass reinforce is ever going to really be handy. Either everyone misses their offensive actions (bad), or there's a target out there who is now reduced health but no reinforce token to make up for it (bad), and either way had to pay points for this "privilege." This is part of why mass Auzituck hasn't worked in 2e.

//

As to why it's so expensive... Adding a powerful action can be rather risky in general. I don't think there was any specific fear. Mostly, I think it was probably just a bad idea to print the card.

4 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

Whether or not I observed the interaction, I wouldn't ever use it. The actual boost to survival time isn't that large, requires a specific defensive action, and costs too many extra points.

A reminder: you never ever reinforce with this ship. Your only goal is to hit the table with Fanatical active, and then focus or evade every round. You're paying 3 points and a shield to maximize offense.

5 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

In general, I don't think mass reinforce is ever going to really be handy. Either everyone misses their offensive actions (bad), or there's a target out there who is now reduced health but no reinforce token to make up for it (bad), and either way had to pay points for this "privilege." This is part of why mass Auzituck hasn't worked in 2e.

Unfortunately I'm inclined to agree. Most ships have no business reinforcing, including some ships that natively have reinforce. The best times to use it are to tank a series of shots with your support craft (and even then, emphasis on attacking might be better), or to gain RAC's attack benefit. RAC and support lambdas are when I've seen it work out best.

IMO there may be value to the Fanatical FO gimmick, but they're just so delicate.

6 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

As to why it's so expensive... Adding a powerful action can be rather risky in general. I don't think there was any specific fear. Mostly, I think it was probably just a bad idea to print the card.

Yea, the card seems so fundamentally flawed. I'm amazed that even after nerfing it to near-irrelevance, FFG is still afraid of Reinforce. They're still really cautious about letting up on the gas for Jumpmasters, so I'm not surprised Reinforce also gives them chills. I share your belief that the card probably was just not a good idea from the start.

If reinforce let you cancel crits first, or got some substantive boost to make it less impotent, then we'd be talking.

46 minutes ago, Wazat said:

I forget who suggested it (probably @theBitterFig or @Hiemfire ?),

the BitterFig and I argued over it when I brought it up for a 5x /FO list about a year ago. I've had a chance to fly a version of my original list on vassal recently (the new points expanded the list's options by dropping the original list build's cost by almost 20pts) and it is okay-decent. Stupidly efficient red dice but doesn't have the hp to stay in the fight.

Angled Deflectors main problem is the cost. You have to pay 9pts or 6pts (on 0 or 1 agility ships that would actually need it) AND a shield AND a mod slot. It should just be 1pt if its taking a shield from you.

Anyways, where can it be good/decent?

1) A ship that needs to stay alive early game (perhaps its ability is crucial to your list, or its ability kicks in at range 0-1 of enemy, etc.) and doesnt have great repositioning.

2) A ship with passive mods so reinforce action doesnt completely neuter the offense.

Who fits the bill?

Nym - His ability to control the mat is crucial. He is mostly here to drop bombs and control. His 1 agility benefits from reinforce against any 2 dice gun, only letting 1 through. The closer he gets to the enemy, the deadlier he becomes with bombs, turrets, and 4 dice primary. Reinforce will allow him to survive. He can even take r4p8 droid for some passive offense mods.

Captain Nym (48)
Crack Shot (1)
Dorsal Turret (3)
Seismic Charges (3)
Proton Bombs (5)
Angled Deflectors (6)
Havoc (2)
Trajectory Simulator (6)
R5-P8 (4)
Total: 78

Deathrain - Can drop a bomb to reinforce, then move and focus to fire barrage missiles.

“Deathrain” (44)
Barrage Rockets (8)
Proton Bombs (5)
Seismic Charges (3)
Angled Deflectors (6)
Total: 66

4lom - with adv sensors, he can grab the reinforce every round, do a red to gain a calc for a mod. A reinforced 4lom can be a pain in the **** for the enemy.

4-LOM (49)
Advanced Sensors (10)
Angled Deflectors (6)
Total: 65

Saw - Loses a shield brings him a bit closer to triggering his ability. Reinforce lets him live long enough to use his ability. Give him a crew like K2SO to support himself and others, and/or fly him with a ship like Jake for some mods.

Saw Gerrera (52)
K-2SO (8)
Angled Deflectors (3)
Pivot Wing (0)

Jake Farrell (36)
Total: 99

Jag - reinforce is a good way to deter shots away from him and onto to friendlies, which in turn kicks in his ability

“Jag” (48)
Angled Deflectors (6)
Total: 54

43 minutes ago, Wazat said:

A reminder: you never ever reinforce with this ship. Your only goal is to hit the table with Fanatical active, and then focus or evade every round. You're paying 3 points and a shield to maximize offense.

Folks could do it before with Electronic Baffle, everyone locks each other, and you pop them off in the end phase. It's points-cheaper, but you'll be slightly worse in terms of half points threshold.

44 minutes ago, Wazat said:

Yea, the card seems so fundamentally flawed. I'm amazed that even after nerfing it to near-irrelevance, FFG is still afraid of Reinforce. They're still really cautious about letting up on the gas for Jumpmasters, so I'm not surprised Reinforce also gives them chills. I share your belief that the card probably was just not a good idea from the start.

If reinforce let you cancel crits first, or got some substantive boost to make it less impotent, then we'd be talking.

I mean, reinforce can be quite strong. If you've got access to other mods, something like a Decimator with force users, it's a really potent tool for keeping you alive. Reinforced Lambdas are great at soaking damage, and maybe can still support with something like Palp.

But once you strip someone of a shield for this, it just gets hard to justify. If Angled Deflectors didn't reduce a ship's health, but had a higher cost, maybe it'd have made sense.

4 minutes ago, wurms said:

4lom - with adv sensors, he can grab the reinforce every round, do a red to gain a calc for a mod. A reinforced 4lom can be a pain in the **** for the enemy.

4-LOM (49)
Advanced Sensors (10)
Angled Deflectors (6)
Total: 65

This to me is a great example. 4-LOM could easily have taken Hull Upgrade, saved three points, and you'll be able to take offensive actions. To be sure, Reinforce does help 4-LOM live. He can withstand about 7 attacks with Angled Deflectors compared to about 6 attacks with Hull. But if you can Lock and have a Calculate with a red move, that's nearly an extra damage and a half dealt with a Range 1 shot. Maybe that's worth it, maybe that's not.

Why would you ever put this on a Z-95? The math really does not check out. Since you are reducing it to 3 HP, your reinforce only helps against 2 attacks, max (since it cannot reduce damage to zero).

If you factor in that one of those evade results is cancelled by your loss of a shield, it only really gives you one evade, and this is assuming neither of the first two shots you take have three or four uncancelled damage before reinforce. Focus tokens will probably get you an evade result over your lifetime, can be spent for offense, and don’t cost extra.

"Redline" (52)

Advanced Sensors (10) Proton Torpedoes (13) Fifth Brother (11) Angled Deflectors (6) Ship total: 92 Half Points: 46 Threshold: 4

Total: 92

it costs too much but it redline could reinforce, link a lock and use 5th brother to double mod

Phasma actually is pretty stout with Angled Deflectors. With the reinforce active and a nearby wingman (or 2) Phasma ignores 2 Dice attacks and can possibly absorb a 4 Dice attack and not take a scratch.

I've found angled deflectors on B-Wings to be pretty **** good. Best to have something that can coordinate them so they don't lose out on any action economy though!

My best goofy use of it is on Captain Feroph, with some valuable crew member (Admiral Sloane or Seventh Sister, for example) in the first crew slot, and Minister Tua in the second crew slot.

Captain Feroph (47)
- Angled Deflectors (6)
- Minister Tua (7)
- Seventh Sister (9)
- Intimidation (3)

72 point Reaper! Yikes! No, this isn't good. But is something like this fun for the lulz on casual light? Maybe. The key thing is that Feroph has that neat ability where if they spend their focus, she automatically turns her green die into an evade. Add reinforce, and their 3 hits become 1 hit. That feels pretty good.

Of course, a savvy opponent realizes that if they roll hit-focus-focus, and don't spend the focus, they still do a damage if Feroph doesn't roll a natural evade, and then they keep their focus for defense.

I threw Intimidation on there because you can get in their grill and let your other ships hit the target easier. You can switch things around so she's not so prohibitively expensive, but the key thing that makes her get Reinforce + mod is Angled Deflectors with Minister Tua, which is 13 points base, so no matter how you slice it, this Feroph is going to be too expensive. It could be fun though.

27 minutes ago, Parakitor said:

the key thing that makes her get Reinforce + mod is Angled Deflectors with Minister Tua, which is 13 points base

* raises hand *

I don’t get it... Angled gives you the ability to reinforce, but Tua does, too. Aren’t they redundant?

31 minutes ago, CoffeeMinion said:

* raises hand *

I don’t get it... Angled gives you the ability to reinforce, but Tua does, too. Aren’t they redundant?

The key is that you get to take a focus action for offense, and Tua let's you reinforce in the engagement phase. Action economy is one of the main drawbacks of Angled Deflectors. Of course, Tua makes the other drawback even worse, namely the exorbitant price.

EDIT: And if anybody can deal with the loss of a shield, I think Captain Feroph can.

47 minutes ago, Parakitor said:

The key is that you get to take a focus action for offense, and Tua let's you reinforce in the engagement phase. Action economy is one of the main drawbacks of Angled Deflectors. Of course, Tua makes the other drawback even worse, namely the exorbitant price.

EDIT: And if anybody can deal with the loss of a shield, I think Captain Feroph can.

But @CoffeeMinion is right that you don't need Angled Deflectors to do it. Just run Tua and Hull Upgrade. The first hits will come easy enough, and Tua will be giving you the reinforces while you still take other actions.

15 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

But @CoffeeMinion is right that you don't need Angled Deflectors to do it. Just run Tua and Hull Upgrade. The first hits will come easy enough, and Tua will be giving you the reinforces while you still take other actions.

Does Tua actually give you the Reinforce action, though? It doesn't show it on the action bar.

Huh. I guess you're right. Somehow I got it in my head that "may" meant that the ship had the option to do the action ONLY if it appeared on the action bar. I stand corrected.

Angled Deflectors + Lando crew can give you both offence and defence for low-initiative Scum ships. It's expensive though, and I feel like you'd be better off just putting Lando on a YV-666.

You could also do some kind of token transfer shenanigans, like Holdo for the Resistance or Plo Koon for Republic. Logistics Division Pilot+Holdo+Deflectors is 46 points and lets you swap someone's stress token for a reinforce, which doesn't seem terrible , although I'm not convinced it's worth the points over just coordinating. Maybe if Resistance gets a big ship with linked actions or a good stressy crew.

Another niche use is that Deflectors + Squad Leader would allow you to coordinate Reinforce.

Holo to toss a reinforce to an SF. But why not just take 4 hp Holo and toss evades to Silencers?

5 hours ago, Hoarder of Garlic Bread said:

Holo to toss a reinforce to an SF. But why not just take 4 hp Holo and toss evades to Silencers?

You could also do it with Plo Koon. Toss a Reinforce to a Supernatural Reflexes Anakin?

There's always cute tricks. Are they good tricks? Not really.

There's this combo:

TIE/ca Punisher - •“Redline” - 74 •“Redline” - Adrenaline Junkie (52) Passive Sensors (3) Proton Torpedoes (13) Angled Deflectors (6) Lambda -class T-4a Shuttle - •Lieutenant Sai - 60 •Lieutenant Sai - Death Squadron Veteran (47) •Seventh Sister (9) • ST-321 (4) Total: 134/200 View in the X-Wing Squad Builder

Sai coordinates a reinforce to Redline, who gets a lock. Sai also gets the reinforce from his pilot ability, and triggers the title giving him a lock too. Later in activation when Redline goes, he can Focus (or another action) and get another free lock.

Best case scenario, Redline engages with focus, two locks and a reinforce. Sai engages with a lock, reinforce, and a Force. It's a massively expensive combo though, with only enough points left for Soontir+bid or a few filler ships.

Edit: I suspect this wouldn't work great on the table; it's mostly a thought experiment in theoretical token-stacking optimisation. Low initative enemies can block and then the whole combo train falls to bits. High initiative enemies can make it hard to lock the right targets (defeating the purpose of the combo if that happens) or arc-dodge completely.

3 hours ago, theBitterFig said:

You could also do it with Plo Koon. Toss a Reinforce to a Supernatural Reflexes Anakin?

There's always cute tricks. Are they good tricks? Not really.

Especially when Anakin has native defense mods.

2 hours ago, Dasharr said:

E dit: I suspect this wouldn't work great on the table; it's mostly a thought experiment in theoretical token-stacking optimisation. Low initative enemies can block and then the whole combo train falls to bits. High initiative enemies can make it hard to lock the right targets (defeating the purpose of the combo if that happens) or arc-dodge completely.

Yea, the big trouble is Sai + Redline take up so many points, there's not much space for the ships you need to keep the enemy from simply focusing one ship to death, be that Sai or Redline or their escourt. Sai is so immobile, his only option is to be ignored, or tank and hope he contributes before death. It's not a bad combo, but most fleets aren't kind to it. That said, when I tried it, it was against a vulture swarm and some rough dice luck, and I couldn't kill ships very easily. So it could have gone quite differently.

1 hour ago, Hoarder of Garlic Bread said:

Especially when Anakin has native defense mods.

I feel like this is important. 2E's Reinforce doesn't usually help if you have dice mods or are otherwise getting evade results. The only time it can contribute is when the enemy sends 2 more damage than your evade dice blocked, and on evasive ships, that's often not the case. The ships most helped by reinforce are those with 0 or 1 agility and lots of health, hence its doubled cost for them.

One thing I've been looking to try is Zuckuss with Lando crew and AngDef, though with average (mode) init dropping (from what I can tell by skimming threads, admittedly not the best indicator) others might not like it. Lando allows the Reinforce token to do double duty as both a defensive and offensive mod, but the need to spend the token for Lando's ability means it only really works well against lists that are heavily I4 and up.

The base build for Zuckuss for this set up (Adv Sens might be a handy addition, but pushes it to above 1/3rd a list):

Zuckuss (45)
Lando Calrissian (Scum) (8)
Angled Deflectors (6)

Ship total: 59 Half Points: 30 Threshold: 4


Total: 59

11 hours ago, Ysenhal said:

Angled Deflectors + Lando crew can give you both offence and defence for low-initiative Scum ships. It's expensive though, and I feel like you'd be better off just putting Lando on a YV-666.

Just a +1 for @Ysenhal 's post.

E.g.:

Gand Findsman (41)
Lando Calrissian (Scum) (8)
Angled Deflectors (6)

Ship total: 55 Half Points: 28 Threshold: 4

There's one ship I'd ever consider putting Angled Deflectors on, and that's just because of the way the ship skirts the scaled agility pricing. U-Wings.

The chassis goes from 8 health to 7, so no threshold change, and the pilots have some utility with action economy (Heff Tobber, K-2SO) or modifying results (Magva, Saw, Cassian, Bodhi, Benthic.)

You're paying only 3 for it at AG2 and it still has 2 shields left. There's something cheeky about that when you close your pivot wings with the right planning.