9 hours ago, costi said:

Clone token sharing would probably never be brought up if they were truly "quality over quantity" and had noticeabky less activations that the rest (ie. 8-9 would be typical, 10 would require running everything barebone).

However, they got a lot of cheap and very effective units (Rex, Padme, R2, Strike teams) which make "low numbers" not matter anymore. So, all of the benefits with none of the drawbacks. On top of that, soon they will get another cheap, effective unit with surge to crit (AT-RT).

Also, if I take a naked Stormtrooper unit, it is a fairly useless activation that can only do backfield duty. A naked P1 squad, on the other hand, is a very effective token battery for more expensive units.

I have never played a game with clones with more than 8-9 activation since they came out.

The solution is 2 man Flamer drop troops for 53 pts.

Drop them in, they have blast and a special rule called " en fuego " kind of like poison , but destroys the area terrain that your unit was using or close to.

I would like to think FFG knows that strike teams are an issue in some way? The community does not seem to be the biggest fan of how important they are to pad out activations. Throw in armada fixing their actions issue with tokens and I like to think we will get something.

Instead of a limit they could just increase their prices by a lot? Make people only take 1 or 2. Maybe even make them useless (make the OT special forces better to even it out)?

They did say the Q4 points change would change the meta...... And that they would be conservative about the changes (whatever that means).

2 hours ago, OneLastMidnight said:

You kinda hit the nail on the head though. In a 11-activation list, if you have 3 strike teams, that's 27% of your activations from ~18.75% of your points. It's even worse the fewer activations you have.

Not only that, they're not a crappy pushover unit (someone above mentioned an un-upgraded, naked Stormtrooper squad), they're actually bringing an excellent gun to the party and can stay safe and protect your activation count for a good while.

This level of efficiency is what's problematic, and to a greater extent, the concept of activations in general which encourages using as many units as possible; using fewer, more expensive units is not a real competitive option.

If people move on from Strike Teams, that would be a good thing in my opinion. They're used in every single list in the GenCon Online Top 8 (for factions that have access to them anyway), and used in 18/20 lists of the Invader league top 20 with at least 2 units, and most of the time, 3x.

If not over-powered, they are way over-efficient, and a unit this ubiquitous across all factions is a problem for the game. When using a unit stops being a choice and is an obvious necessity, it's a core design problem with that unit.

I totally agree with this (add in R2) they are too efficient even for the points they are now.

19 minutes ago, RyantheFett said:

I would like to think FFG knows that strike teams are an issue in some way? The community does not seem to be the biggest fan of how important they are to pad out activations. Throw in armada fixing their actions issue with tokens and I like to think we will get something.

Instead of a limit they could just increase their prices by a lot? Make people only take 1 or 2. Maybe even make them useless (make the OT special forces better to even it out)?

They did say the Q4 points change would change the meta...... And that they would be conservative about the changes (whatever that means).

In my (Legion, X-Wing, Armada) experience, FFG tends to waaaay overvalue small percentage point changes. You have to think "Ok, what do those extra 1 to 10 points get me?"

Which varies a lot depending on the game.

In X-Wing, meaningful upgrades are generally so expensive that a point or 2 won't really make a big change. And there are few cheap upgrades that make a big difference compared to an extra ship.

In Armada, upgrades are very cheap compared to the cost of most ships. 5-10 points off a ship or admiral might mean quite a few upgrades. It's significant.

In Legion, upgrades are cheaper, but not incredibly meaningful in general outside of heavy weapons (and some personnel like medics or officers), Force powers, and specific cases (Overwatch/Push on Clones). So yeah, an extra 10 points might mean a command or gear upgrade. It's alright.

Going back to possible game tweaks as "knobs", I always felt that point costs are a very "all or nothing" sort or knob. It's difficulty to make a unit viable through a cost change without making it a must have, and a lot of units will probably never be able to reach that balance. What's the correct point cost for Scout Troopers? When does its value overtake the 48 points for a Strike team? Would they be played at 50 points? Point costs are tough.

As far as FFG games go, I think valuing upgrades properly is the key. it gives the game extra customization and complexity rather than saying "Well, I'll just stuff as many ships/units in my list as I can."

Rules changes, on the other hand, are incredibly meta-shifting (for better or worse).

If you could only field one Strike Team, how would the game evolve? What if Special Forces slots were limited to 2? What if Scout troopers had a range 3, 2W gun? Or marksmanship?

What if Standby tokens could no longer be shared outside exemplar? What if Vader commander had a Saber Style?

These are the things that are going to get models on tables, not "Well he's 10 points cheaper now".

I don't think Invader League Season 5 results should be used as justification for something as large as removing standby sharing from clones. All the BX and Arc cards weren't even in TTS for ILS5. Gen Con online results showed a pretty diverse faction representation and that is with Phase IIs and token sharing present.

I think standby sharing has a lot of different components to it. Standby was almost never used before clones. Standbys are traditionally easy to strip, but clones can keep the standby unit further back, or more likely OLS to help prevent it being stripped. Token sharing requires clumping units, which should open a counter via use of weapons and units that punish clumping. The few cards in the game that punish balling up almost never see play (sabs) because their slots are taken by snipers (more on this and ILS5 results below). Tauns punish balled-up units as well, but they are an outlier as an effective disruptive unit, and are arguably helping keep clones in check. Standby sharing allows clones to maximize their best units without sacrificing action economy. This one I think speaks more to the relative imbalance between units with good action economy versus everything else in the game. In short, i don't know that the problem is that standby sharing is bad, but more that the game has too cheap long-range units that favor gunlines, and token sharing clones are the best gun line, and that standby is too weak unless it is shareable. Perhaps, rather than nerf clones, we should consider points changes that make gunlines less dominant, sabs stronger (which clones don't have), and maybe even buff standby so it is useable outside of clones.

As an aside on sabs and snipers. I do think ILS5 results are concerning, but more from the point of how ubiquitous Sniper upgrades were (not talking just strike teams, but how often you saw a unit that could take a Sniper upgrade--but didn't). Now that isn't completely fair as a data set partially because CIS couldn't take their sabs, and only had a sniper option. Still, look through the single elim lists. How many SF units could take a Sniper upgrade and don't (pretty sure that number is zero). Then look at how many SF slots were filled out of the three possible, it is a lot. As already mentioned, the data isn't foolproof, not all options were on the table. However, if we want to start zeroing in something warping the game, it might be those range 5 heavy upgrades need some re-appraising, because that data isn't unique to ILS5. Any time a faction can take a Sniper upgrade, we see them in droves.

I may now be under the camp that points changes are a mistake. And I LOVE the points changes in X-wing. Just a year seems like too long of a time. Either go X-wing 6 months, Armada no changes no matter how bad it gets, or one big points change a year. Their conservative yearly thing just seems like a perfect storm to annoy everyone and I am starting to think it may be the worse option. Throw in their love of changing rules over points which seems more complicated and messy then just points changes?

As for strike teams do we know their opinions on the matter? Like if they ever said just throwing in three snipers in every list is the way they wanted them to work? Or is it something they created and they not really sure how to fix at the competitive level?

On 8/17/2020 at 5:09 AM, costi said:

Automatic Cover 2 (with pilot), Armor, free dodges (with compulsory move) and Outmaneuver - isn't this a bit too much?

have you seen the clone tank? that gets armor, two free dodge tokens (from its pilot) and outmaneuver. and it has way more health and a red armor save. it can combine all its weapons into one dice pool. it can hit multiple units with its beam. it can ignore cover with its rockets. in comparison the airspeeder is a sad flying turd thats forced to split its two weapons between the two worst arcs possible. its so terrible.

no its absolutely not too much. and im not saying the airspeeder wont need a points increase with those rules. but it would be better for the airspeeder to cost more and have good rules than cost less and have bad rules.

all of the above is exactly what the airspeeder needs to compete with the clone tank. otherwise there is no reason to bring it ever.

airspeeder needs two things. and if its point cost goes up thats fine. as long as it gets those two things.

1) blast or critical 2 on its main gun so its main gun no longer completely sucks against units in cover. because both its rear guns are abysmal. it at least needs a good main gun.

2) free dodge token when it performs a move action (NOT a compulsory move) and the outmaneuver rule. free dodges is a rebel thing anyway, it fits with the faction.

it doesnt need to be as survivable as a clone tank. nobody expects that. but it needs to be useful. and right now its not useful because its way too fragile, its main attack is way too weak, and its incapable of fulfilling its intended role, let alone any role.

32 minutes ago, Khobai said:

have you seen the clone tank? that gets armor, two free dodge tokens (from its pilot) and outmaneuver. and it has way more health and a red armor save. it can combine all its weapons into one dice pool. it can hit multiple units with its beam. it can ignore cover with its rockets. in comparison the airspeeder is a sad flying turd thats forced to split its two weapons between the two worst arcs possible. its so terrible.

Slow down. Plo Koon exhausts so he cannot be used every turn without sacrificing shooting (refresh and move are both actions). The bunker busters are only range 1-2 and they also exhaust. If you have the beam weapon, bunker buster shells, and Plo Koon, the Saber clocks in at 221 points.

12 hours ago, KarlVonCarstein said:

I don't object to the existence of sniper teams, I object very strongly to people spamming them to boost their activation counts. If I were to make a change to all of them, I'd give them the detachment keyword with their respective parent units so you can still use them, but get rid of the obnoxious spam.

You could give the parent unit a keyword allowing 2 detachments letting you run 2 strike teams. In addition, add a rule that non-standard unit leader (chars., heavy weapon leader) are no longer replaced when killed before the rest of the unit. I think strike teams needing to be shot twice if positioned correctly before the sniper is lost is part of the reason they are as much as they are.

37 minutes ago, crow servo said:

add a rule that non-standard unit leader (chars., heavy weapon leader) are no longer replaced when killed before the rest of the unit

Or they could just errata Heavy Weapon Team so that the heavy weapon isn't the unit leader. No need to over complicate it. And no need to mess with the other situations where that's a thing, as in those cases the heavy weapon upgrade has Leader as a keyword, so removing that from all of them wouldn't make any sense since it was a direct decision to give it to them.

2 hours ago, Mokoshkana said:

Slow down. Plo Koon exhausts so he cannot be used every turn without sacrificing shooting (refresh and move are both actions). The bunker busters are only range 1-2 and they also exhaust. If you have the beam weapon, bunker buster shells, and Plo Koon, the Saber clocks in at 221 points.

And guess what? I would still much rather have plokoon give 2 dodge tokens that can dodge crits every other turn than have +1 cover every turn. the airspeeder pilot is overcosted trash. plokoon even costs less points despite the fact hes better. Why is plokoon so much better? because his dodges can cancel crits and the airspeeder's cover cant. Plus the airspeeder has armor anyway which significantly reduces the effectiveness of the cover keyword to begin with. Cover is a terrible rule for the airspeeder.

so what if the bunker buster is only range 2? the airspeeder has exactly NOTHING that ignores cover at ANY range. so the tank wins in that regard too. please give my airspeeder a range 2 weapon that ignores cover. I would LOVE that, even if it only fires every other turn... ill take it.

And so what if the saber costs 221 points? Thats irrelevant. Because my whole point is that id rather have a more expensive airspeeder thats good than a cheaper airspeeder thats garbage. Again I never said the airspeeder should get buffs for free. If its cost goes up im fine with that. As long as its not bad anymore.

And again how does it make sense for the clone tank to have outmaneuver but not the airspeeder when the airspeeder is the most maneuverable vehicle in the game? Outmaneuver is the perfect rule for the airspeeder. So giving it outmaneuver not only makes sense but giving it action economy that gives it dodge tokens also makes sense because its in line with the identity of rebels. I would even be fine with the airspeeder losing cover 1 if it gains outmaneuver and the ability to gain a free dodge token when it takes a move action. Because cover is almost entirely useless anyway given the fact the airspeeder already has armor and it really only affects impact weapons.

Compulsory move is also every bit as much of a disadvantage as it is an advantage, if not moreso. It gets the airspeeder killed horribly more often than not. So why shouldnt the airspeeder get better firepower to make up for the fact youre forced to kamikaze it at the enemy? That only seems fair to me. At least make it a glass cannon that can do decent damage before it inevitably dies. The airspeeder is really not like other vehicles because its literally forced to kill itself off every game. So stop trying to treat it like other vehicles. The airspeeder is completely different from any other vehicle in the game and has huge disadvantages that apply only to the airspeeder and not anything else. And those disadvantages arnt properly factored into its design. Like the fact it can never hide behind a building and can always be shot at by every single gun thats in range. That is a crippling disadvantage so I dont think giving it outmaneuver and a free dodge each turn is too much to ask for.

So again the airspeeder needs either blast or crit 2 on its maingun and it needs outmaneuver and should get a free dodge token if it takes a move action. If its cost has to go upto like 175-180 points thats fine. Its what it needs to not suck. Because right now the thing sucks. And not just a little bit. It sucks a lot. Its not even playable. Its a flying kamikaze dumpster fire that cant do enough damage before it dies to ever pay for itself.

1 hour ago, Lochlan said:

Or they could just errata Heavy Weapon Team so that the heavy weapon isn't the unit leader. No need to over complicate it. And no need to mess with the other situations where that's a thing, as in those cases the heavy weapon upgrade has Leader as a keyword, so removing that from all of them wouldn't make any sense since it was a direct decision to give it to them.

That works too but they already have run into a problem with the current rule interaction with multi-wound unit leaders like Gideon Hask.

If he takes a wound before the rest of the unit due to force choke or he is the only legal target on an attack, he will always have to take the first wound on any attack after that as he is the only wounded model in the unit. He will constantly be dying and replacing other models in the unit.

40 minutes ago, crow servo said:

That works too but they already have run into a problem with the current rule interaction with multi-wound unit leaders like Gideon Hask.

If he takes a wound before the rest of the unit due to force choke or he is the only legal target on an attack, he will always have to take the first wound on any attack after that as he is the only wounded model in the unit. He will constantly be dying and replacing other models in the unit.

Why would he be "constantly dying"? He only is defeated once, then all wound tokens are removed and you replace a different model... The wound tokens don't move over, or else the entire unit would be defeated in every situation where the leader takes wounds first (a model is only defeated when it has a number of wound tokens equal to the health value). We have had multi wound leaders for quite awhile in Tauntauns and Speeder Bikes, if the leader somehow dies first, they replace the other model keeping the wound tokens that were on the other model.

4 minutes ago, Caimheul1313 said:

Why would he be "constantly dying"? He only is defeated once, then all wound tokens are removed and you replace a different model... The wound tokens don't move over, or else the entire unit would be defeated in every situation where the leader takes wounds first (a model is only defeated when it has a number of wound tokens equal to the health value). We have had multi wound leaders for quite awhile in Tauntauns and Speeder Bikes, if the leader somehow dies first, they replace the other model keeping the wound tokens that were on the other model.

So if he takes 2 wounds on an attack and dies then he replaces a 1 wound trooper, he comes back with full wounds?

That seems strange to me. I was assuming he'd come back with only one wound similar to a medic restoring him.

55 minutes ago, crow servo said:

So if he takes 2 wounds on an attack and dies then he replaces a 1 wound trooper, he comes back with full wounds?

That seems strange to me. I was assuming he'd come back with only one wound similar to a medic restoring him.

The medic restoring is a special case, which can't happen to the Leader mini (and RAW right now, can't restore a counterpart). As I said, it is (per rules as of posting) treated the same as when the Tauntaun or Speeder Bike unit leader dies: the wound tokens do not move with the leader, but any wound token from the non-leader model stay on the battlefield.

Short answer: Yes, RAW right now a two health leader replaces a one health model and has no wound tokens assigned to them.

These kinds of issues are exactly why we need an RRG update ASAP

3 hours ago, costi said:

These kinds of issues are exactly why we need an RRG update ASAP

It is seriously months overdue. Units should NEVER come out (especially come out months late) without being preceded by an RRG containing the rules for those units. The fact that ******* Dooku's expansion has a keyword that isn't in the RRG proves how much of a clown show that part of the operation is.

3 hours ago, costi said:

These kinds of issues are exactly why we need an RRG update ASAP

What issues? The Treat/Repair rule issue I pointes out? That issue has been in the game since counterpart was added, which has been a few updates at this point.

The multiple wound leader "issue"? I don't see an issue there, that's how the situation is handled in the book and it makes sense alongside the other rules in the RRG.

edit: no argument that the RRG could use an update through.

The fact they arent changing points till Q4 is a major downer.

22 minutes ago, Memorare said:

The fact they arent changing points till Q4 is a major downer.

Hopefully it is early Q4. I think the issue right now is that they are trying to do the points adjustment, balance tweaks with keywords, and adding in new stuff all at the same time. As much as it sucks to have to wait, I'm guessing when we finally get the new RRG it will be worth the wait.

45 minutes ago, Memorare said:

The fact they arent changing points till Q4 is a major downer.

I think a major part of that is being shut down for at least a month. I'm not sure how long the lockdown in MN was.

17 hours ago, RyantheFett said:

I would like to think FFG knows that strike teams are an issue in some way? The community does not seem to be the biggest fan of how important they are to pad out activations. Throw in armada fixing their actions issue with tokens and I like to think we will get something.

Instead of a limit they could just increase their prices by a lot? Make people only take 1 or 2. Maybe even make them useless (make the OT special forces better to even it out)?

They did say the Q4 points change would change the meta...... And that they would be conservative about the changes (whatever that means).

I don't think they think its as big of a deal as people on this forum do. What have they done so far? Raise the cost of the strike team ( instead of the weapon ) and then release a very similar, but somehow upgraded version of the strike team for both of their new factions.

Heaven help us when the Mercenary Faction's strike team is released, it will have 3 red dice offensive and surge for defense on red dice on defense and cost the same amount of points.

I don't really care as much, because I've never run more than 2 and have a hard time justifying any of them in a Rebel list now that R2 is a thing and you can get 40 pt corps units. I've never liked the Rebel sniper and don't feel the need to be hard core, ultra-efficient, competitive in my games.

17 hours ago, Kyln said:

I don't think Invader League Season 5 results should be used as justification for something as large as removing standby sharing from clones. All the BX and Arc cards weren't even in TTS for ILS5. Gen Con online results showed a pretty diverse faction representation and that is with Phase IIs and token sharing present.

I think standby sharing has a lot of different components to it. Standby was almost never used before clones. Standbys are traditionally easy to strip, but clones can keep the standby unit further back, or more likely OLS to help prevent it being stripped. Token sharing requires clumping units, which should open a counter via use of weapons and units that punish clumping. The few cards in the game that punish balling up almost never see play (sabs) because their slots are taken by snipers (more on this and ILS5 results below). Tauns punish balled-up units as well, but they are an outlier as an effective disruptive unit, and are arguably helping keep clones in check. Standby sharing allows clones to maximize their best units without sacrificing action economy. This one I think speaks more to the relative imbalance between units with good action economy versus everything else in the game. In short, i don't know that the problem is that standby sharing is bad, but more that the game has too cheap long-range units that favor gunlines, and token sharing clones are the best gun line, and that standby is too weak unless it is shareable. Perhaps, rather than nerf clones, we should consider points changes that make gunlines less dominant, sabs stronger (which clones don't have), and maybe even buff standby so it is useable outside of clones.

As an aside on sabs and snipers. I do think ILS5 results are concerning, but more from the point of how ubiquitous Sniper upgrades were (not talking just strike teams, but how often you saw a unit that could take a Sniper upgrade--but didn't). Now that isn't completely fair as a data set partially because CIS couldn't take their sabs, and only had a sniper option. Still, look through the single elim lists. How many SF units could take a Sniper upgrade and don't (pretty sure that number is zero). Then look at how many SF slots were filled out of the three possible, it is a lot. As already mentioned, the data isn't foolproof, not all options were on the table. However, if we want to start zeroing in something warping the game, it might be those range 5 heavy upgrades need some re-appraising, because that data isn't unique to ILS5. Any time a faction can take a Sniper upgrade, we see them in droves.

It all comes down to they do not properly value range. It's possible the biggest factor in the game and does not seem to have a large effect on points

3 hours ago, Mokoshkana said:

Hopefully it is early Q4. I think the issue right now is that they are trying to do the points adjustment, balance tweaks with keywords, and adding in new stuff all at the same time. As much as it sucks to have to wait, I'm guessing when we finally get the new RRG it will be worth the wait.

I like to also think that Covid was a major cause for delays, but they do have some warning signs with Legion. Clone Wars releases have been a major problem from the start and that was before everything shut down. Throw in Q4 having only 2 units (guess 4 if you count January and they may announce more!), their wording that the next wave is 4 GCW units (open to interpretation), them somewhat saying they still do not have sub-factions planned out (Crabbok interview), and conservative yearly point changes makes me worry. And a lot of this could just be misunderstanding and me becoming more cranky and jaded lol. At least Armada and X-wing are looking real good in comparison!

2 hours ago, buckero0 said:

I don't think they think its as big of a deal as people on this forum do. What have they done so far? Raise the cost of the strike team ( instead of the weapon ) and then release a very similar, but somehow upgraded version of the strike team for both of their new factions.

Heaven help us when the Mercenary Faction's strike team is released, it will have 3 red dice offensive and surge for defense on red dice on defense and cost the same amount of points.

I don't really care as much, because I've never run more than 2 and have a hard time justifying any of them in a Rebel list now that R2 is a thing and you can get 40 pt corps units. I've never liked the Rebel sniper and don't feel the need to be hard core, ultra-efficient, competitive in my games.

Strike teams don't really affect me either since we have a local rule of not using strike teams to pad out list. I sort of wish FFG would just say if strike teams are being used as the way they planned them or not. They are playing Legion very close to the chest and I sort of wish we knew more about their views on the game. **** we still do not even know how releases work for this game ever since they stared to say "waves"?!?!?!

Not sure how I would count their last attempt to fix stuff since they made a lot of good changes, but power creep was not a problem back then. That what makes this new points change so interesting. Will they go the for buffs for bad stuff, nurfs for OP, rules changes over points, and if strike teams stay as filler. The units I'll be looking for is the Rebel heavies. They clearly need help, but may be considered a loss cause at this point. Should be fun either way.