14 minutes ago, Cloaker said:

Cost is crucial;

Hm, let's compare it to its lil' inbred FO third cousin, also at Initiative three, the TIE SF Omega Squadron Ace, currently at 34 points;

OSA sits at 4.2 to 7.4 shots to destroy; Onyx Squadron Sentry 4.6 to 7.3 STD; Pretty close. Perpetual reinforce moves the chains from 6.9 to 10.0 STD Edge; Brute Kinda?

OSA has linked Focus/Evade, Tech and Sensor Slot; OSA will have two cannon slots, Reinforce, and configuration that either gives it a bit more speed and maneuverability (anything more than 2 points is expensive) or action economy (target assist linked rotate calc) which is probably about a shade better than Passive Sensors here, so let's go with 4 points at most. Edge; TIE S/F

Cannons are already priced premium--so let's say one either goes with linked cannons or some combo cannons--- which can fire backward, scary with Ion -- let's equate that to SF Gunner as a wash at 10 points. The Brute does NOT have a printed front arc, so no front-back tap--If you're moving the turret, you ain't reinforcing ( A reinforce to linked rotate would have been neat here ) Brute falls a bit short here. It needs Reinforce fairly constantly to pull its weight. Which means, less offensive mods... Edge; TIE S/F

So yeah, anything more than 30-32 points for the I3 Brute, base 28-30 for the I1 seems like it will be overpriced given that this ship requires outfitting to be fun or worthy to play. Would definitely expect to see the Brute Aces priced 10+ points higher to start out due to those sweet sugar abilities. This is a medium base (which means it takes more shots than the TIE S/F) and that hurts the T-Rolls to bring it back into the fight after the alpha. This ship will be begging to be coordinated when going against 5 ship+ lists. It'll be lucky to get three attacks in during a game What really hurts it though; It has no printed front primary firing arc. Aces will dodge it for days--and swarms mow it down. Don't even get started on Spamtex silliness or CLT Jedi, it won't stand a chance

Is it DOA? Hardly. It just will need a lot of friendly flies (TIEs) around it to keep it a threat. I don't care, still buying 3 because I actually loved Solo

That's all I got for amateur hour assessment flame on

I feel 28-30 for the i1 is reasonable if not underpriced.

Its like the bastard child if a Tie SF and a Y-Wing.

Y wing has same health, worse dial, no linked actions, no special cannons, but turret, torp, bomb, astromech, instead.

You say it has no printed firing arc but isnt it a two die primary attack it can rotate front or back linked to a calc?

Having to pay (potentially significantly) more to pick up somewhat useful configs and linked actions doesn't feel like significant power creep. Rotate->red calculate on the base stat-line is cool but pretty darn limited, and is full of universe flavor with the rb design...and this dial isn't exactly an A-Wing dial full of blues. Targeting assist is dope with the now-white linked calculate and the passive-ish mods, but it also feels constrained and has the potential to incur significant list-building cost. Maneuver assist does help that dial and the white roll is sweet, but you lose your free mod potential. I just find it hard to understand the uproar.

I look at some of the other ships listed "without quality linked actions" and I'm not overwhelmed by their inferiority or lack of capability. S-Foils for T-65s are interesting and thematic and give a very good linked action (focus->boost, albeit at cost). E-Wing isn't ideal, but linking a lock still has promise. The ship ability is cool and lets you roll into the opening engage double-modified, something many ships can't do. The HWK-290 has quality linked actions in focus/rotate and target lock/rotate...and the U-Wing config lets it turn whichever direction it wants, in place. The gunboat gets its configs which allows for a great deal of versatility.

The brute isn't going to squash all these rebel ships just by existing and paying a potential premium to get a free calculate if conditions are met.

22 minutes ago, Cloaker said:

Agreed--lack of linked action or double reposition (interceptor? HAH!) junky blues, slightly overpriced cannons and zero munition builds that are not worth not having a green token for, Scyks are just fine where they are at. Not galaxy wrecking. FFG has got them right. I do think Genesis Red could maybe see some more play. He's got unexplored potential.

Id love to get a list with Dalan Oberos (viper) and Genesis Red to work. I feel like they both could be great.

2 minutes ago, dsul413 said:

The brute isn't going to squash all these rebel ships just by existing and paying a potential premium to get a free calculate if conditions are met.

This sorta misses the point (again) of why Rebel players are grumps.

The Brute isn't going to squash rebel ships because rebels have basically no meta-presence at all anymore due to a critical lack of archetype diversity or supporting tools.

People aren't afraid that the Brute will beat Rebel lists. They are grumpy because the Brute is another ship in a long line of ships that make it harder and harder to justify busting out your rebel ships, which is a problem if you only own rebel ships or only own mostly rebels!

1 minute ago, dezzmont said:

This sorta misses the point (again) of why Rebel players are grumps.

The Brute isn't going to squash rebel ships because rebels have basically no meta-presence at all anymore due to a critical lack of archetype diversity or supporting tools.

People aren't afraid that the Brute will beat Rebel lists. They are grumpy because the Brute is another ship in a long line of ships that make it harder and harder to justify busting out your rebel ships, which is a problem if you only own rebel ships or only own mostly rebels!

So now with Tie Bombers, Punishers, Star Wings andd Brute, we can make an Imperial Beef List?

1 minute ago, dezzmont said:

This sorta misses the point (again) of why Rebel players are grumps.

The Brute isn't going to squash rebel ships because rebels have basically no meta-presence at all anymore due to a critical lack of archetype diversity or supporting tools.

People aren't afraid that the Brute will beat Rebel lists. They are grumpy because the Brute is another ship in a long line of ships that make it harder and harder to justify busting out your rebel ships, which is a problem if you only own rebel ships or only own mostly rebels!

The Brute is the first Imperial ship to release in that "long line of ships", is it not? If rebels get another ship in say, the spring (and I'm not saying it will happen), is all forgiven? Or a Y-Wing config that gives it a linked action or something?

This seems like FFG just hasn't found the sweet spot on Rebel list building for it to be interesting. That's a design or points problem with the faction, but does that really make this ship power creep or...what, fun/interest creep? Is a Defender power creep by existing, or does it have a balanced place in the design of a faction with appropriate costing?

I don't play these factions very often, admittedly, but it feels from scanning the thread that various arguments why FFG is jacking up design for rebel players are shifting to have a reason to be mad about it. That's probably just an artifact of different people providing their opinion in a small sample size.

Actually I dont think this should cost less than 29, I dont think 7 x 8 health ships with rotating arcs, linked actions and reinforce is a great idea, it would be Imperial Meat Shields instead not just beef.

Also if someome runs all Brutes we now have a better chance to get the weird event of getting more than 33 damage cards on the table without losing a ship.

Should be possible to run 6 with hull upgrade for 54 health on the table!

Not a good list but a damage sponge.

17 minutes ago, Scum4Life said:

So now with Tie Bombers, Punishers, Star Wings andd Brute, we can make an Imperial Beef List?

Maybe, maybe not. But it is sorta immaterial because even Rebel, the 'beef faction' doesn't run beef right now. Beef isn't itself a strategy, its a means to an end to Joust efficiently. In a sense, 6 Nantex is a 'beef' list because the gimmick is they can I-kill super efficiently and take a lot of firepower to clear out compared to how much damage they deal.

If this thing is a cheaper source of 2 red 8 health (With a better bar, dial, passive effect, and arguably slots), than the 'beef faction's' version, that fits in non-beef lists an brings in the strength of beef, then that is going to be seen as a problem.

It isn't 1:1, and obviously Empire might not use it at all, but its still kinda... weird to see.

11 minutes ago, dsul413 said:

rebels get another ship in say, the spring (and I'm not saying it will happen), is all forgiven? Or a Y-Wing config that gives it a linked action or something?

To be clear, while I am very down on the Rebel faction as a whole and how FFG handled them, I don't think the TIE Brute is 'bad because of power creep.' I don't think it is much power creep at all in terms of its basic chasis (Unless it skids in at 30 or lower). I am more trying to say why people feel compelled to talk about rebels in a TIE Brute thread, because while I don't think the Brute actually is causing 'more' problems right now, I do think there is a problem and people often miss the underlying cause because what is important to them is different than what is important to another person, and most people's game design lexicon biases towards 'balance' or 'power' rather than 'emotive experience' which is a bit more esoteric than what most people think or know how to express!

So in the context of me, those two things happening wouldn't cause all to be forgiven unless they were strong enough it 'unlocked' the rebel faction by giving it a draw that would make you consider other Rebel tools: The main problem with the rebel 'toolkit' is there isn't much reason to pick it up as opposed to say... the Scum or Resistance toolkit: No individual element in it is so good to make you sacrifice what you would get doing other things. If an individual element was that strong in a new release it would help, but honestly I think the problem is a bit more fundamental than that.

11 minutes ago, dsul413 said:

This seems like FFG just hasn't found the sweet spot on Rebel list building for it to be interesting. That's a design or points problem with the faction, but does that really make this ship power creep or...what, fun/interest creep?

That is, in a way, literally my point!

It isn't really that this is 'power creep' but it is feature creep that is intrusive into a faction that lacks very many real features, which makes it hard to justify the faction even if the feature its intruding on isn't good.

'Rebels aren't fun, they lack a real identity or gimmick and FFG doesn't seem to know what to do with them, they only do one thing well, that thing isn't very good, oh look here comes another ship that does a similar thing in a faction that has more viable lists than any other faction in the game, that might take that one thing rebels do well and put it into a working list, oh no! Now I am going to go complain about the TIE Brute in the thread even though, practically speaking, the TIE Brute doesn't affect me at all and is merely symptomatic of my problems.'

But most people are bad at expressing this because, again, how we talk about faction balance often biases really hard towards power or mechanics rather than those little intangible elements like cohesion, fantasy, and appeal, or recognizing that is what people are talking about, which is fairly understandable because its way easier to try to parse someone's subjective experience by trying to link it to something more (but not completely) objective like mechanical balance, especially as these things are linked even if they aren't identical (Part of rebel's problem is that the evocative things about them are under-powered, for example, to the point its hard to use them even at a casual level).

7 minutes ago, dezzmont said:

Maybe, maybe not. But it is sorta immaterial because even Rebel, the 'beef faction' doesn't run beef right now. Beef isn't itself a strategy, its a means to an end to Joust efficiently. In a sense, 6 Nantex is a 'beef' list because the gimmick is they can I-kill super efficiently and take a lot of firepower to clear out compared to how much damage they deal.

If this thing is a cheaper source of 2 red 8 health (With a better bar, dial, passive effect, and arguably slots), than the 'beef faction's' version, that fits in non-beef lists an brings in the strength of beef, then that is going to be seen as a problem.

It isn't 1:1, and obviously Empire might not use it at all, but its still kinda... weird to see.

To be clear, while I am very down on the Rebel faction as a whole and how FFG handled them, I don't think the TIE Brute is 'bad because of power creep.' I don't think it is much power creep at all in terms of its basic chasis (Unless it skids in at 30 or lower). I am more trying to say why people feel compelled to talk about rebels in a TIE Brute thread, because while I don't think the Brute actually is causing 'more' problems right now, I do think there is a problem and people often miss the underlying cause because what is important to them is different than what is important to another person, and most people's game design lexicon biases towards 'balance' or 'power' rather than 'emotive experience' which is a bit more esoteric than what most people think or know how to express!

So in the context of me, those two things happening wouldn't cause all to be forgiven unless they were strong enough it 'unlocked' the rebel faction by giving it a draw that would make you consider other Rebel tools: The main problem with the rebel 'toolkit' is there isn't much reason to pick it up as opposed to say... the Scum or Resistance toolkit: No individual element in it is so good to make you sacrifice what you would get doing other things. If an individual element was that strong in a new release it would help, but honestly I think the problem is a bit more fundamental than that.

That is, in a way, literally my point!

It isn't really that this is 'power creep' but it is feature creep that is intrusive into a faction that lacks very many real features, which makes it hard to justify the faction even if the feature its intruding on isn't good.

'Rebels aren't fun, they lack a real identity or gimmick and FFG doesn't seem to know what to do with them, they only do one thing well, that thing isn't very good, oh look here comes another ship that does a similar thing in a faction that has more viable lists than any other faction in the game, that might take that one thing rebels do well and put it into a working list, oh no! Now I am going to go complain about the TIE Brute in the thread even though, practically speaking, the TIE Brute doesn't affect me at all and is merely symptomatic of my problems.'

But most people are bad at expressing this because, again, how we talk about faction balance often biases really hard towards power or mechanics rather than those little intangible elements like cohesion, fantasy, and appeal, or recognizing that is what people are talking about, which is fairly understandable because its way easier to try to parse someone's subjective experience by trying to link it to something more (but not completely) objective like mechanical balance, especially as these things are linked even if they aren't identical (Part of rebel's problem is that the evocative things about them are under-powered, for example, to the point its hard to use them even at a casual level).

Well written. To be clear, I wasn't coming after your point of view specifically, just the general flavor of the thread. I appreciate this discourse.

7 minutes ago, dsul413 said:

Well written. To be clear, I wasn't coming after your point of view specifically, just the general flavor of the thread. I appreciate this discourse.

15 minutes ago, dezzmont said:

That is, in a way, literally my point!

Be careful with the civility you two, you're going to wind up creating some sort of benign "dialogue on difference" precedent, and you know we just can't have such a thing in these forums. The tolerance for non-polarizing discourse is fairly intolerable--next thing you know, you two will be flying Defenders and E-Wings in the same squad together and we're just not going to have any of those shenanigans around here.

Someone throw a rock at a TIE or something please

10 minutes ago, Cloaker said:

Someone throw a rock at a TIE or something please

Isn't that what started the Boston Massacre? The last thing 2020 needs is a revolution.

1 hour ago, Scum4Life said:

Id love to get a list with Dalan Oberos (viper) and Genesis Red to work. I feel like they both could be great.

Prockets, brother, prockets. Init 4 deliver a fully modded prockets for 38 points? That dog'll hunt

for funsies try this--hits hard and makes scum Han a real pain--he strips Ace greens, 2 prockets punch (Jast beats up low init/recharge and lures chasers into traps), Dalan runs circles around and shoots stuff

Dalan Oberos (54)
Predator (2)

Genesis Red (31)
Marksmanship (1)
Proton Rockets (6)

Quinn Jast (31)
Marksmanship (1)
Proton Rockets (6)

Han Solo (48)
Trick Shot (4)
IG-88D (3)
Qi’ra (2)
Hotshot Gunner (7)
Lando’s Millennium Falcon (3)
Total: 199

21 minutes ago, Cloaker said:

Someone throw a rock at a TIE or something please

10 minutes ago, Nyxen said:

Isn't that what started the Boston Massacre? The last thing 2020 needs is a revolution.

I have a lot of strong controversial opinions about control elements I could bust out if we need to light a moltov and get this party started.

That said, this thread really should be 'about' the TIE Brute, and while I understand the grumble grumble grumble and wouldn't silence it because one of the best ways to be heard about problems is to refuse to go along with a 'good news' vibe, I think we shouldn't rain on the Imps parade, who despite being a far more 'supported' faction also deserve new toys.

Looking at this thing I am noticing how Empire doesn't have access to Reinforce plus a Gunner on anything besides the Deci, which opens options. Part of why #5 is so good on the Deci is because he frees you up to reinforce it constantly, which pushes the minimum turns to kill it with total focus fire from a list up to generally more than one turn, which is a big deal in X-wing. Vs many lists, this is also the case doing it with the Brute, and the Brute likely is a cheaper package to do this with and its more nimble. So I would be shocked to not see this be at least experimented with on lists that don't run a Deci.

Rampage and Lyttan may be a great duo to support a TIE swarm and get a lot of extra HP in, skipping Sloane or Howl. You have Rampage fire on a secondary target, and Lyttan mark stuff for your swarm's main body. If your opponent focuses the Brutes you can have them be reinforced to make it a losing value on trades, but if you ignore them you sorta have a slightly downgraded Howlrunner who isn't getting deleted off the board mid game, with the option for control turrets on top like Ion or Tractor. Price will be an issue here, but considering Howlrunner is you paying 26 points to get the re-roll effect and how they are a bit easier to pick off, it might be a really good alternative.

I've had more fun playing Luke/Han/Braylen than any other list in 2020, but Rebels "aren't fun" because... they don't have actions linked to calculate, like the Brute does...? Or because the Brute has HP which only Rebels should have...?

The last two factions to have "boring" list building (First Order and Scum), turned out to just have overcosted generics. (And overcosted by a larger degree than anyone really expected; needing to get cheap enough for people to be 100% positive they were busted in order to be good enough to compete.) Can we just try cheaper rebel generics over announcing the faction as unfixable?

10 minutes ago, svelok said:

I've had more fun playing Luke/Han/Braylen than any other list in 2020, but Rebels "aren't fun" because... they don't have actions linked to calculate, like the Brute does...? Or because the Brute has HP which only Rebels should have...?

The last two factions to have "boring" list building (First Order and Scum), turned out to just have overcosted generics. (And overcosted by a larger degree than anyone really expected; needing to get cheap enough for people to be 100% positive they were busted in order to be good enough to compete.) Can we just try cheaper rebel generics over announcing the faction as unfixable?

I am totally down with this. dying generic rebels is totally thematic.

Seriously, if they priced all 2 primary attack Rebel generics down by 2 points, that works for me. Leave named pilots where they are at. But then again, I'm dramatic like that.

1 hour ago, svelok said:

I've had more fun playing Luke/Han/Braylen than any other list in 2020

Neat, your subjective experience isn't overriden by people disagreeing with you. Hopefully fixes to Rebels could be done without hurting Luke, Han, and Braylen! In fact, I hope that two of them get buffs and more diverse toolsets (Braylen, sadly, is probably the source of a lot of the rebel's woes and a lot of prices in rebels are pegged towards not letting the named B-wings exploit them, so perhaps a 'fix' for the faction involves them getting bonked a bit, but hopefully not!).

1 hour ago, svelok said:

but Rebels "aren't fun" because... they don't have actions linked to calculate, like the Brute does...? Or because the Brute has HP which only Rebels should have...?

No, as I said earlier, they aren't fun because they often are pidgenholed into very specific compositions and styles and suffer extremely hard in preformance for deviating, and the Brute hits hard because its going into a faction that has a lot of freedom. Furthermore, there is already some animosity that Rebels are so encouraged to use Blue Squad nobodies, while Empire, a faction with so few named starfighter pilots FFG had to make people up has a ton of extremely powerful lists defined by named characters.

No one is asking for calculate links. I think the point is it doesn't feel great to see something that so resembles a Rebel ship but with modern design elements when rebels very clearly suffer from all their design coming early in the game's history and, for the most part, missing the mark either by being too weak or ending up nerfed (Again, lets not forget the main rebel lists that ever had a decent winrate resulted in a ship losing a slot, and a nerf so big that the list now costs 224 points, respectively). So its really a dual problem of A: Rebels being told they need to be about one thing and when they complain the counterpoint skips past that they don't want to be that thing and just promises to make that thing better, and B: It being really clear that no one actually wants Beef to be good so it never will be and they are just in an eternal holding pattern.

And this relates to the Brute because it is a thing rebels are doing but it does it in a way that brings unique upsides that are fresh and don't just make it this one thing. In a different context where the rebels were a vibrant faction with lots of options, no one would care that this thing is basically a Y-wing plus. But the game currently has so many "Rebel plus" ships that it just adds to the sting, even though, again, this is a pretty illogical reaction.

1 hour ago, svelok said:

Can we just try cheaper rebel generics over announcing the faction as unfixable?

'We' did that. Didn't work. Also imagines the problem purely as mechanical power, which, again, isn't the entire issue.

The generics going down 2 points doesn't fix things if you don't care about the tournament performance of generic rebel spam in the first place.

Furthermore, generics really... can't go down much more without bringing back lists we know that people don't enjoy flying against. Dropping every generic by 2 points, for example, allows UUUUX. Do you wanna fly against UUUUX? Cuz I don't wanna fly against UUUUX. Exclude the U wing? That is fine, I can still go for a XXX+Han with upgrades.

Now, the 'fix' to rebels probably does involve points buffs at some point, but rebels are really oddly positioned because so many of their tools were declared NPE risks and just nerfed to the point they can't fit with the things they were designed to work with, so even if they got to an efficient spot they still would be a lot of generic ships, which isn't ideal in the faction that, again, is the faction that has all the named characters from all the stories doing cool things.

I honestly can't stand the pushing of blue squad as 'rebel's solution' because it misses entirely why I want to play them (I am a dork who wants to do dumb cool rogue squadron stuff) and fails to adress why I don't feel like it works (Hey know what Rogue squadron didn't do? Brawl with ships they outnumbered losing half their members). This is why people talk about redesigns to astromechs that grant better repo so Wedge and Luke can be 'real aces' (even though that is problematic) or want the A-wing to be more proactive, or want the named characters to come down. It both solves the 'its not mechanically interesting to brawl with 5 X wings' problem, and the 'I don't feel like this faction with all the characters I love rewards me for loving these characters' problem.

If you don't care about that aspect. Great. I am happy for you. Sincerely. But lets not act surprised when Star Wars nerds don't like that Han Solo doesn't even hit the top 100 of pilots and that the Rebel Falcon is in the bottom 50% of ships and that there is talk that something fundamentally is broken in the faction. Like... there super obviously is a problem here, even if it isn't an important problem to you. And buffing the generics won't change that, because as long as rebels aren't allowed to have fun toys that make the ships like... good at stuff, rather than just brawlers, people are going to keep being unhappy. It doesn't really matter how justified the Leia, Wedge, or Cassian nerfs were, if nothing moved into their place to fill that void and make the Rebels feel like they were something other than a bunch of 'thug ships' that just beat on people.

1 hour ago, Cloaker said:

I am totally down with this. dying generic rebels is totally thematic.

Sure but I don't imagine dying generics when I think of why I like the rebels. They had plenty of no-names who died, but assuming that people want to play those no-named characters dying in the background is missing the point of why someone wants to play them on a thematic level flimsily supported by over-focusing on the fact that background characters tend to die in general and that most of the stories told about rebels had named characters.

I could live with filler ships biffing it while named characters do their thing (I think Selfless was intended to support this, but it was rightfully banished to the Shadow Realm), but I didn't sign onto the rebellion to play Blue Squadron, a Squad so minor and unimportant that its wookiepedia page is about the length of this post and to which google questioningly shows you both Blue Squadron and Blue Squad because it can't imagine you caring about these dudes.

1 hour ago, dezzmont said:

They had plenty of no-names who died, but assuming that people want to play those no-named characters dying in the background is missing the point of why someone wants to play them on a thematic level flimsily supported by over-focusing on the fact that background characters tend to die in general and that most of the stories told about rebels had named characters.

Uh. I want to play the no named characters dying the background on a thematic level.

10 minutes ago, jagsba said:

Uh. I want to play the no named characters dying the background on a thematic level.

Cool! I am going to assume this isn't sarcasm because I know many people who enjoy such things in similar games, so I am happy that you find enjoyment from this aspect!

Firstly: Why? Sincerely. I would imagine someone who liked being the mooks would go for the Empire, which feels way more 'imperial guard' than Rebels. Furthermore, I assume this fantasy obviously doesn't involve them dying, correct? I am actually facinated by this because I can get it in some other scifi wargames like 40k (The IG have the appeal of being 'normal dudes' in a horrible galaxy) but in Star Wars that doesn't seem to... click as well. I suppose rebels are as close to 'normal dudes' as you can get, but what they are up against is also pretty close to normal dudes, so you don't get the "EDF effect' of having a bunch of people try to charge a giant bug monster with spears. Sell me on this please, because I need all the help I can get deriving joy from Blue Squadron nobodies.

Secondly: ok. Why does this have to be their 'main' hat? Couldn't this theme coexist with other changes to rebels to make it not their primary option? Why does any request to buff other aspects of this have to be met with 'they just need their generics to come down again.' And "just" is an important word here, I am fine with points nerfs to generics I just don't understand the pushback against a desire for OTHER things to happen too.

Three: Can you understand why this might not be the primary way a lot of people want to interact with the faction? I am not going to shame how anyone enjoys the game, that is the opposite of what I am about and I would rather just more 'modes' of the faction to be unlocked, but it seems weird to me that anyone associates rebels with 'Blue Squad no-name dying in a shower of sparks during a 3 second cutaway' rather than 'Luke Skywalker,''Kyle Katarn,' or 'Jyn Erso.'

Don't get me wrong I will rewatch the The Battle of Skarif supercut any day, it was awesome and really showed why star wars space fights are fun. But is that really the first thing you think of when you think of rebels?

28 points? Really? That's just absurd to me. Like, TIE Bomber is 27, is already a *VERY* cheap and cost effective ship, and this adds a turret and reinforce to the party.

Keep in mind: this isn't all that different from a Resistance Transport, where they're 38 with Ion Cannons. These things with Ion at 33--the " Six of these would not break the meta ?" I mean, Ion Scyks at 31 are strong ships.

I'll also take massive issue with the suggestion that these will need to be outfitted to be good. High time-on-target turret ships are far more effective than they seem on paper. TIE/sf are generally best without extra offense. TIE Aggressors are solid ships. Y-Wings are probably under-rated. I could totally see flying two no-cannon Maneuver-Assists as blockers/chonkers with a pair of aces. They're almost like Torrents in that attacks into them are kind of wasted since it takes so long to kill one and you only get peanuts in points.

21 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

Y-Wings are probably under-rated.

I can confirm Y-wings are very underrated in my completely objective and not at all questionably small sample size research of 'games I played with them.'

They mostly are held back by not really having good things to go with them and 'keep people honest.' The Brute would NOT have this problem within Empire, especially because its much more maneuverable.

I suspect it might be really fun to fly and fly against, almost like a slasher villain of a ship: It is coming, you think you outrun it but then it is suddenly there beside you and it hits you in the leg with an Ion so you can't run. Shooting it only seems to slow it down but it ain't stopping, until it is dead and you get to watch the sunrise with the 1-2 other survivors of its killing spree.

Does this change the 3 straight and 3 bank maneuvers or the 3 straight and all bank maneuvers?

4 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

Does this change the 3 straight and 3 bank maneuvers or the 3 straight and all bank maneuvers?

3 straight and 3 banks.

Rebels have always been a bit more, eh, industrial. Toolbox-y builds, synergy utility. and yeah, generic beef to a degree.

For the 11 minutes that spam Y-Ion Wings were being played, or buzzsaw U-Wings, or even back in the day of quad wookies or Beef Wedgeington or whatever was getting played, the meat that needed to be chewed meant that Rebels stayed in the game. They were durable, accursed Regen notwithstanding.

Yet they ain't glamorous. To some they're a slog to fly or fly against. Even their most dynamic starfighter, the E-Wing, has a lack of flash as evidenced by the game's worst linked action and the rather inglorious need to have to shoot and run. And maybe that's what they need to be right now. Desperate. Alone. Except for the one or two buddies next to them. Rebel swarm has never really been a lasting archetype, and it probably shouldn't be.

But I digress---the Brute has all the appeal of a block of hardened cheese without upgrades. It will need to be outfitted to see viable play. There's a reason 5 K-Wings (which is more health and better time on target than 5 naked brutes would ever be) aren't a thing, and that's because they're just bad. Whatever that Brute's action bar is, ain't going to make up for 1AG, no shields, Lambda bad blues, and medium base. It is NOT a high Time on target... it isn't the same as the other chassis with secondary arcs. What the heck am I saying? The Brute doesn't even have a secondary arc ! It's laughable to think that they will be able to keep a typical target under even a modicum of modded fire for anything more than 2 rounds. Unless you're flying the whole 2 aces the pack comes with, the pieces around it are subjective at best. No fellow ace ship is going to want to be within range 1 of it as it will become target priority. Surround the shark with some minnows, that might be a neat mini swarm though. Lyttan and Rampage need some specific flying to bring their abilities to bear consistently, some big ol' medium base shark circling for Lytta and some slingshot beta strike reposition for Rampage. Targets can afford to ignore Lyttan as he can't assist in the focus fire against them, and if an opponent gauges Rampage's approach right, he'll be lucky to land his ability twice in a game. (Which MIGHT be enough against ace-y builds, build against 5 ships or more notsomuch.) But if the Aces cost northwards of 25% of your list they're probably going to cost too much. Low to mid 40's cost for the aces or go home. I can live with the I1 / I3 generics at 35 and 37 respectively.

2 hours ago, dezzmont said:

Furthermore, generics really... can't go down much more without bringing back lists we know that people don't enjoy flying against. Dropping every generic by 2 points, for example, allows UUUUX. Do you wanna fly against UUUUX? Cuz I don't wanna fly against UUUUX. Exclude the U wing? That is fine, I can still go for a XXX+Han with upgrades.

Now, the 'fix' to rebels probably does involve points buffs at some point, but rebels are really oddly positioned because so many of their tools were declared NPE risks and just nerfed to the point they can't fit with the things they were designed to work with, so even if they got to an efficient spot they still would be a lot of generic ships, which isn't ideal in the faction that, again, is the faction that has all the named characters from all the stories doing cool things.

I think you're pretty spot on about the fixes. It seems like Selfless is a doorway to some sort of answers for the faction. It's just a crit, and many of their ships melt anyways under sustained fire. Helps their non-aces who are more front game loaded stick around. What if it was 1 point? Would that give generics a bit more utility in the spirit of the faction? Just thinking aloud. Also, I wasn't talking about dropping ALL rebel generics by 2... just the ones with 2 attack value primaries.

51 minutes ago, dezzmont said:

Cool! I am going to assume this isn't sarcasm because I know many people who enjoy such things in similar games, so I am happy that you find enjoyment from this aspect!

Firstly: Why? Sincerely. I would imagine someone who liked being the mooks would go for the Empire, which feels way more 'imperial guard' than Rebels. Furthermore, I assume this fantasy obviously doesn't involve them dying, correct? I am actually facinated by this because I can get it in some other scifi wargames like 40k (The IG have the appeal of being 'normal dudes' in a horrible galaxy) but in Star Wars that doesn't seem to... click as well. I suppose rebels are as close to 'normal dudes' as you can get, but what they are up against is also pretty close to normal dudes, so you don't get the "EDF effect' of having a bunch of people try to charge a giant bug monster with spears. Sell me on this please, because I need all the help I can get deriving joy from Blue Squadron nobodies.

Secondly: ok. Why does this have to be their 'main' hat? Couldn't this theme coexist with other changes to rebels to make it not their primary option? Why does any request to buff other aspects of this have to be met with 'they just need their generics to come down again.' And "just" is an important word here, I am fine with points nerfs to generics I just don't understand the pushback against a desire for OTHER things to happen too.

Three: Can you understand why this might not be the primary way a lot of people want to interact with the faction? I am not going to shame how anyone enjoys the game, that is the opposite of what I am about and I would rather just more 'modes' of the faction to be unlocked, but it seems weird to me that anyone associates rebels with 'Blue Squad no-name dying in a shower of sparks during a 3 second cutaway' rather than 'Luke Skywalker,''Kyle Katarn,' or 'Jyn Erso.'

Don't get me wrong I will rewatch the The Battle of Skarif supercut any day, it was awesome and really showed why star wars space fights are fun. But is that really the first thing you think of when you think of rebels?

Unironically I like playing the generic rebels.

I don't know what an imperial guard is but sounds pretty imperial to me. I like the idea of the dudes in the background fighting and dying for a cause they believe in. And democracy seems like a better goal than totalitarian rule. Plus I think the ships are neat.

I didn't say anything about hats or pushback on anything but that there are people like me who thematically like generic rebels.

I get that people like names that's fine. I didn't say it wasn't. Seems like 'people want to play those no-named characters dying in the background is missing the point of why someone wants to play them on a thematic level' is far less empathetic to someones playstyle than 'I want to play the no named characters dying the background on a thematic level.' I'm just saying I like generic rebels and I like the theme of the no named guys helping out. That's not a negation of your likes or themes.

First thing I think of for rebels are all those dudes yes. The names are just characters in specific stories. Jyn and Kyle and everyone else were no name rebels until they got names.

Hey everyone also can we talk about the cost of synced laser cannons? Cause my Iggy A/B Brobots are, you know, asking .