30 minutes ago, Wazat said:

IMO strain on generics is much gentler than stress, since they can do that k-turn or do a white + action next round. All they give up is 1 agility for one defense, on a ship that can afford to be a bit more disposable to give it more teeth. It's a nice effect.

Yeah, the strain wouldn't be too bad (except on Malarus herself, who shoots early and can't decline the effect). The other part is not being able to reroll eyes when you don't have focus. Howl swarms can be surprisingly effective on passive mods alone; a Malarus swarm would be somewhat less so.

A First Order Epic ship!!!

And some stuff about a shuttle, I guess.

32 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

A First Order Epic ship!!!

And some stuff about a shuttle, I guess.

It's the carrion spike it used to be Tarkin's ride. So it could be a fo empire combination.

4 hours ago, Skitch_ said:

I like that Terex has his cybernetics on the opposite sides of his head on each side of the card. Maybe he is looking in the mirror in one of the pictures.

Apparently illicits were never part of the Scum identity for 2e. Scum truly is the faction without an identity.

Hmmmm...

13 out of 19 scum ships can equip illicits.

Compared to
3 out of 17 ships on Rebels (2 of which is not all pilots)
2 out of 7 Resistance ships
1 out of 6 First Order ships
1 Separatist ship (assuming Jango's Slave I can equip them)
The other factions can't even equip them.

That's 7 non-scum ships that can equip illicits split over 4 factions, so not even all factions.

Yeah, scum have so lost their identity and market share on illicit upgrades. God forbid there be crossover...

I'm sorry, but Scum have access to the most ships that can take illicits and even have ships that other factions have but can take illicits such as Z-95s and Y-Wings. When the total amount of ships just comes up to half your factions total number of equipable ships, it's not going to cause me to shed a tear for and cry "oh the humanity!" for scum, particularly when there's more to their faction identity than just the illicit slot.

3 hours ago, Gausebeck said:

This was my first thought, too. I love Howl swarms and this would be more flexible (range 0-2) and tougher, even though the reroll ability isn't as strong and comes with strain. I hope Malarus comes in at 50 or less but with Howl at 46 I'm not sure that will happen.

I predict 51. Just enough so Malarus plus 6 FOs costs 201.

1 hour ago, Ebak said:

Hmmmm...

13 out of 19 scum ships can equip illicits.

Compared to
3 out of 17 ships on Rebels (2 of which is not all pilots)
2 out of 7 Resistance ships
1 out of 6 First Order ships
1 Separatist ship (assuming Jango's Slave I can equip them)
The other factions can't even equip them.

That's 7 non-scum ships that can equip illicits split over 4 factions, so not even all factions.

Yeah, scum have so lost their identity and market share on illicit upgrades. God forbid there be crossover...

I'm sorry, but Scum have access to the most ships that can take illicits and even have ships that other factions have but can take illicits such as Z-95s and Y-Wings. When the total amount of ships just comes up to half your factions total number of equipable ships, it's not going to cause me to shed a tear for and cry "oh the humanity!" for scum, particularly when there's more to their faction identity than just the illicit slot.

Remember when Cikatro Vizago used to be able to give an illicit to just anyone and FFG said "HOLY ******* ****, THAT'S WAY TOO POWERFUL!!!!!! NERF THE EVERLOVING **** OUT OF IT!!!!!!" Yeeeeeeeeaaaaaahhhhhhh...... Scum players remember.

37 minutes ago, Kleeg005 said:

Remember when Cikatro Vizago used to be able to give an illicit to just anyone and FFG said "HOLY ******* ****, THAT'S WAY TOO POWERFUL!!!!!! NERF THE EVERLOVING **** OUT OF IT!!!!!!" Yeeeeeeeeaaaaaahhhhhhh...... Scum players remember.

And, you will note, they were quite careful not to repeat that error here. There will be no Contraband Kylos or Cloaking Upsis in our future.

4 hours ago, Managarmr said:

He can assign whatever new Illicit to all of the SF and FO pilots, so FFG can only design stuff which doesn't make any of these pilots OP. And FFG really maneuvred themselves into a corner here,

Pyre pilot is not fun at all for the opponent. He essentially destroys turn zero deployment, as you have to take the double stress into consideration.

Even fast flankers will hate Pyre pilot.

They can easily create illicit and say Scum Only or Small ship only, etc. Not that big of a design hole.

Pyre also makes mobile fortressing like 4 vipers less likely. One of them isnt rolling backwards and is breaking formation. Pyre can be a nice piece in a list. Ships like shuttles cant just stop in a corner either. Its creates and nice counterplay I think vs certain matchups. Whisper cant cloak. Shuttles cant stop in a corner. Slow flankers down to buy your self time. Stop Ewings and Jendon ships from locking early. Its nothing game breaking.

What I like about Pyre is he kinda hits hardest folks who want to do *fancy* stuff. If your opponent just wants to 1-forwrad-to-victory, Pyre does basically nothing.

1 hour ago, Kleeg005 said:

Remember when Cikatro Vizago used to be able to give an illicit to just anyone and FFG said "HOLY ******* ****, THAT'S WAY TOO POWERFUL!!!!!! NERF THE EVERLOVING **** OUT OF IT!!!!!!" Yeeeeeeeeaaaaaahhhhhhh...... Scum players remember.

I don't recall Vizago ever doing that. What I do recall is people doing things to circumvent rules like putting two of the same illicit on a ship or saying "Look, I put rigged cargo chute on a Z-95 because Vizago allows me to ignore the restrictions of Medium/Large" when the point was allow you to swap two different illicit. Not use said swap to get around list building restrictions, WHICH ARE THERE FOR A REASON!

I'm going to just speak my mind: Scum players have, and always will be up their own ***** about their faction getting nerfed when I consistently have my *** handed to me by scum lists and in the history of X-Wing the faction with the most consistently broken lists have been...oh yeah, ****ing scum lists! I'm not saying other factions haven't or don't have broken combos...but Scum could be accused of having the most across the history of the game.

So cry me a river of tears about your bleedin' faction identity.

1 hour ago, DR4CO said:

And, you will note, they were quite careful not to repeat that error here. There will be no Contraband Kylos or Cloaking Upsis in our future.

Fair enough. Doesn't make it easier to swallow First Order doing Scum things better than Scum.

As has been pointed out earlier in this thread, Scum has no identity outside of three pilots being able to do something that others can't quite manage (yet). Meanwhile, Scum players keep hoping that Illicits will somehow come back, do *something*. Instead, that "identity" gets even further diluted - on top of, as has been mentioned, Illicits being released which they can't even use. Super.

I guess all that's left to say is....huh. Whatever? I guess? "Suck it up, cupcake." And keep hoping for the future.

23 minutes ago, Ebak said:

I don't recall Vizago ever doing that. What I do recall is people doing things to circumvent rules like putting two of the same illicit on a ship or saying "Look, I put rigged cargo chute on a Z-95 because Vizago allows me to ignore the restrictions of Medium/Large" when the point was allow you to swap two different illicit. Not use said swap to get around list building restrictions, WHICH ARE THERE FOR A REASON!

I'm going to just speak my mind: Scum players have, and always will be up their own ***** about their faction getting nerfed when I consistently have my *** handed to me by scum lists and in the history of X-Wing the faction with the most consistently broken lists have been...oh yeah, ****ing scum lists! I'm not saying other factions haven't or don't have broken combos...but Scum could be accused of having the most across the history of the game.

So cry me a river of tears about your bleedin' faction identity.

You are right about Vizago. It has been so long since I've even looked at him. That's how bad he has become.

As for the rest, gotcha. It's personal. Cheerio.

1 hour ago, theBitterFig said:

What I like about Pyre is he kinda hits hardest folks who want to do *fancy* stuff. If your opponent just wants to 1-forwrad-to-victory, Pyre does basically nothing.

Defensive rerolls on a 2 agility ship are no joke, especially if it has its force-independent ways of generating calculate, be it Terex or the new I3 and below tech.

Against some lists, that defensive bonus is mostly weak. Against many lists with traditional linkers and what not, it'll be literally as good defensively as Kohska. If you reaallllly need Pyre to trigger, take Debris and Rigged Cargo Chute.

So there are fourteen upgrades cards but only 10 have been revealed

1. Agent Terex

2. Automated target priority

3 commander malarus

4 commander pyre

5. Contraband cybernetics

6. Something Shot

7. Deadmans switch

8. Inertial dampeners

9 rigged cargo Chute

10 Sensor Buoy suites

There is a face down crew in the spread in the attack on all fronts article. https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2020/1/8/attack-on-all-fronts/ do you think the other cards are duplicates or am I missing something?

Just now, Hoarder of Garlic Bread said:

Defensive rerolls on a 2 agility ship are no joke, especially if it has its force-independent ways of generating calculate, be it Terex or the new I3 and below tech.

Against some lists, that defensive bonus is mostly weak. Against many lists with traditional linkers and what not, it'll be literally as good defensively as Kohska. If you reaallllly need Pyre to trigger, take Debris and Rigged Cargo Chute.

You can also equip Phasma and ram into opponents like a desperately fertile chihuahua. By the time they've lost Pyre's stress, you're making them dodge Phasma's bubble. It's end of engagement so the timing isn't fully perfect for Pyre synergy, but it's potentially strong if you're positioning so enemies have to push hard to keep arc on pyre & friends. They can keep the stress and grant Pyre a bonus (and miss out on actions too), or lose the stress and possibly not have arc. IMO that'd play nice with TIE/sf or ace buddies.

Hux, Phasma, Kylo, Snoke... lots of crew haven't seen much use in FO because their only option was the Upsilon. Xi is hopefully going to open the faction to a lot of old strategies made good-as-new.

Reckon I lost my cool a bit. Look, this ship is an absolutely amazing ship for the First Order. Good on you guys. Enjoy.

1 hour ago, Kleeg005 said:

Fair enough. Doesn't make it easier to swallow First Order doing Scum things better than Scum.

(...)

As for the rest, gotcha. It's personal. Cheerio.

This.

5 hours ago, Ebak said:

Hmmmm...

13 out of 19 scum ships can equip illicits.

Compared to
3 out of 17 ships on Rebels (2 of which is not all pilots)
2 out of 7 Resistance ships
1 out of 6 First Order ships
1 Separatist ship (assuming Jango's Slave I can equip them)
The other factions can't even equip them.

That's 7 non-scum ships that can equip illicits split over 4 factions, so not even all factions.

Yeah, scum have so lost their identity and market share on illicit upgrades. God forbid there be crossover...

I'm sorry, but Scum have access to the most ships that can take illicits and even have ships that other factions have but can take illicits such as Z-95s and Y-Wings. When the total amount of ships just comes up to half your factions total number of equipable ships, it's not going to cause me to shed a tear for and cry "oh the humanity!" for scum, particularly when there's more to their faction identity than just the illicit slot.

Scum has 68% ships which can take Illicits.

It is 3 out of 6 FO ships now. Get your numbers right. Makes it almost 50% (almost as we do not know yet how many Xis can equip Illicits).

50 and 68 is not far from each other.

2 hours ago, Managarmr said:

This.

Scum has 68% ships which can take Illicits.

It is 3 out of 6 FO ships now. Get your numbers right. Makes it almost 50% (almost as we do not know yet how many Xis can equip Illicits).

50 and 68 is not far from each other.

Agreed. Not just the ratio either, it's all these factions singing "anything you can do I can do better!". Nantex took (edit: and ruined) tractor, Handbrake Han ruined inertial dampeners, FO's taking other illicits. Everybody borrows Scum's things and returns them scuffed or broken; scum watches and frowns at its mundane or nerfed choices. Until FFG releases some scum-only illicits, scum can't really do anything with them that other factions aren't doing more effectively and interestingly, and those are the ones that weren't nerfed too hard. But meh, I've talked it to death already and I'm definitely not interested in a flame war over it.

3 hours ago, Kleeg005 said:

Reckon I lost my cool a bit. Look, this ship is an absolutely amazing ship for the First Order. Good on you guys. Enjoy.

His post was pretty hostile, so your response is understandable. And to understand things from his end a bit, his ears were probably burning too, hence the intensity of his words.

The thread is indeed much more fun when we're gushing about how cool this ship will be.

Exploring some ideas:

Xi with Tactical Officer + Hux

3x TIE/sf generics with Concussion Missiles, FCS, maybe Pattern Analyzer

Gideon Hask with Kylo Ren + Agent Terex

Ally ace(s) with Proud Tradition

Swarm of FOs or SFs

Kylo the target that's likely to try to flip PT without a focus token. Not only do they suffer a nasty crit, but now they'll continue being punished by Gideon. Either they won't flip PT with that ship, or they'll pay a very high price to do so. Only safe time to flip is while dying. Or if they can hold onto their focus, which will be even harder once Terex flips.

Far from guaranteed, but it adds some interesting options for pressuring/punishing opponents, and it finally lets Kylo crew air out the moth ball smell.

Commander Malarus

TIE/fo swarm with Advanced Optics

Option to modify away the blank before Malarus forces a reroll if you don't want the strain. Or choose to reroll for a strain, but now you have that control. Rolling double blank is still kinda weak though.

Agent Terex carrying Snoke, Deadman, maybe 2 other illicits

Swarm 'o FOs or SFs

Snoke can be fielded more cheaply, to look ahead and contribute to a proper swarm to plan blocks... though maybe Sense Kylo still has better utility overall. I don't understand why Snoke takes 2 crew slots, he's not that powerful is he? Hrm, I may be too tired.

I was pumped until I saw Hask is limited to 2 die attack ships. I thought it would be awesome on 3x Engineers, probably why they limited it...

points as always are going to be a key factor, some of these upgrades look great, but I just hope they don’t leave the gate overpriced, conversely under costed so they become oppressive.

52 minutes ago, reqent said:

So there are fourteen upgrades cards but only 10 have been revealed

1. Agent Terex

2. Automated target priority

3 commander malarus

4 commander pyre

5. Contraband cybernetics

6. Something Shot

7. Deadmans switch

8. Inertial dampeners

9 rigged cargo Chute

10 Sensor Buoy suites

There is a face down crew in the spread in the attack on all fronts article. https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2020/1/8/attack-on-all-fronts/ do you think the other cards are duplicates or am I missing something?

The Card is Deadeye Shot, we see it in the Firespray card. Vid spot here: https://youtu.be/-rUS4PvJHxQ?t=5828

1 hour ago, Managarmr said:

It is 3 out of 6 FO ships now.

To be perfectly fair, it's likely exactly one FO pilot who can take illicits, it's just that he also hands them out to a few friends on a per-game basis.
Your comparison smacks of complaining that the Empire has 100% of ships with the E-Wing ability as compared to the one rebel E-wing, when it's really just one Empire pilot doing that (plus Targeting Computer for a few ships).

That said, when the first illicit release since the inception of 2.0 was one no ship in Scum could use, that hurt. We need more cool illicits. Especially ones that might make the Kihraxz and Lancer actually fill their slots.

On a completely different note, we now need the following alt-art pilots:
Agent T-Rex
Commander Walrus
Gideon Jura (from MTG)
just setting the Pyre card on fire, it's all that gold-plated eyesore deserves

6 minutes ago, Matanui3 said:

To be perfectly fair, it's likely exactly one FO pilot who can take illicits, it's just that he also hands them out to a few friends on a per-game basis.
Your comparison smacks of complaining that the Empire has 100% of ships with the E-Wing ability as compared to the one rebel E-wing, when it's really just one Empire pilot doing that (plus Targeting Computer for a few ships).

That said, when the first illicit release since the inception of 2.0 was one no ship in Scum could use, that hurt. We need more cool illicits. Especially ones that might make the Kihraxz and Lancer actually fill their slots.

On a completely different note, we now need the following alt-art pilots:
Agent T-Rex
Commander Walrus
Gideon Jura (from MTG)
just setting the Pyre card on fire, it's all that gold-plated eyesore deserves

Usable illicits is like usable Empire Gunners....

I fairly sure it has been said that Agent T-Rex can take 3 illicits, then hand them out like a benevolent politician at election time. The issue being he buys some illicits at i3 prices, given to i6 squad mates, dampeners is an example...

As an ex Scum player, sometimes you feel like you’re forgotten about, but then there is always Boba...

3 hours ago, reqent said:

So there are fourteen upgrades cards but only 10 have been revealed

1. Agent Terex

2. Automated target priority

3 commander malarus

4 commander pyre

5. Contraband cybernetics

6. Something Shot

7. Deadmans switch

8. Inertial dampeners

9 rigged cargo Chute

10 Sensor Buoy suites

There is a face down crew in the spread in the attack on all fronts article. https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2020/1/8/attack-on-all-fronts/ do you think the other cards are duplicates or am I missing something?

If you look closely that face down crew card is a small stack of cards, so my guess is that there are more new things hidden away.

Commander Pyre is an interesting one. Unless you are flying a high aggression list and are aiming for engagement in the first two turns, you should be able to clear that stress fairly easily. Similarly, it should be fairly easy to tell if an opposing First Order player is gunning for an early engagement, and you can respond accordingly.

It will be interesting to see how expensive he is. His 'main' ability, defensive rerolls against a stressed attacker is brilliant, but his choice of ride will be the Xi or the Upsilon.

3 hours ago, Archangelspiv said:

Usable illicits is like usable Empire Gunners....

I fairly sure it has been said that Agent T-Rex can take 3 illicits, then hand them out like a benevolent politician at election time. The issue being he buys some illicits at i3 prices, given to i6 squad mates, dampeners is an example...

As an ex Scum player, sometimes you feel like you’re forgotten about, but then there is always Boba...

Is that really going to be that overpowered? A single pilot with a single points trick? I’m finding that unlikely. The dampeners abuse was Han, and he had regen nonsense to boot, AND he got an action because Kanan would clear the stress. The FO or SF pilots using dampeners will be without an action, and will not be able to get that shield back (without a 9 point upgrade that uses multiple slots, and has limited number of uses unlike Han’s R2 crew).

When I think Terex, I think The Carrion Spike. Then they tease us by putting it in the background of the card art!

He should really be scum and villainy with his own ship. Seems like a strange choice for a First Order shuttle pilot.