https://strawpoll.com/9edbc52u5

I don't see what there is to be mad about. The ability is awful. Your opponent has just as much say in it as you do, and even when you meet the conditions there's a frighteningly high chance that it'll just do nothing, since your opponent needs to both roll a Focus and actually care about losing it. Neither is guaranteed.

He's mostly just an i6 Firespray (which is probably fine in and of itself). He's not going to be an OP, ban worthy pile of nonsense like his son.

If you have a target lock on him it won't matter. Thread tracers might make that highly possible.

Advanced optics ships won't mind much.

Against a ship with heroic a blank focus might be a funny result.

Against his own son, at range one, its meaningless.

"Simple Man" = wall of text.

I vote his new ability is:

"I shoot. You die. No dice. Simple as that." 😉

I'm perturbed for a couple of reasons.

1. Separatists were doing fine as the low initiative faction. In fact anti-ace is one of their greater personalities. Discords, massed arcs, HMP wide arcs, and the new Fearsome Predators are all well suited to fight aces. Getting 2 high initiative, potentially ace-y pilots seems against type.

2. Separatists have already taken a decent bit of Scum's identity, getting the Firespray too just adds to that irk. Especially when who Jango worked for was so frickin' muddled. He was bounty hunter that was working for Palps/Dooku to help manufacture a war.

3. An I6 with passive mods? Why do this?

He'll be as effective as he was in Episode II

38 minutes ago, 5050Saint said:

3. An I6 with passive mods? Why do this?

That's the core of it for me. He's an I6 Firespray--a really strong chassis for high Init--with passive mods.

On offense, defense, every attack against everyone, regardless of range and position.

Can they be turned off? Sure, but then he's controlling your dial or your actions and it'll probably be unfun to play against.* Likewise, Boba can be turned off. Just keep him at a distance. Contrarily, while Boba has great tools to survive playing like a fool and getting in close, and Jango doesn't have those tools, Jango also doesn't have to fly close.

And if he had blank text, he'd still be an I6 Firespray, almost surely with the Force.

* This is a huge part of it for me. I think he'll be a total buzzkill to fly against, since he'll be exerting an undue influence on how I act with my own ships. I think he'll be the enemy of fun, and just a bummer to fly against.

25 minutes ago, 5050Saint said:

I'm perturbed for a couple of reasons.

1. Separatists were doing fine as the low initiative faction. In fact anti-ace is one of their greater personalities. Discords, massed arcs, HMP wide arcs, and the new Fearsome Predators are all well suited to fight aces. Getting 2 high initiative, potentially ace-y pilots seems against type.

2. Separatists have already taken a decent bit of Scum's identity, getting the Firespray too just adds to that irk. Especially when who Jango worked for was so frickin' muddled. He was bounty hunter that was working for Palps/Dooku to help manufacture a war.

3. An I6 with passive mods? Why do this?

I wasn't mad, nor particularly afraid of what will be an annoying ability. But I find I agree with all this.

I do understand Seps may have been a bit miffed to have so little in the way of high init, but I think that's a poor reason to make a Firespray at I6. Those 2 things together are cause enough to fear him.

This looks like a more fair version of Boba's ability, which makes it irritating to me that he wasn't in Scum so that they could "Dash" Boba and let scum have a really strong and efficient mega-ace that isn't an invincible tank.

I am also in camp 'There is no way Jango was actually a seperatist, if Boba wasn't imperial.' He actually would be a fantastic example of a good character to join Hondo as a 'neutral' named character, though obviously that doesn't work with pilots.

I hope they just flat out release a scum version of him, but I think sep firespray was a mistake. The only upshot is that it indicates cross faction ships are back on the menu, and I think those are good. Especially because it makes it easier to entice people to new factions with card packs: If H&A2 comes out with a sep and scum pilot, suddenly your Firespray you got for one is valid for the other and you have a very good reason to start collecting because the ship is such a big chonky ship that you can make it into most of a list already.

Low key that should have been done with the falcon too but I get the desire to sell more than 1 falcon to every 'goodguy nerd, because if the falcon was cross faction they probably could only sell 1-2 per player rather than 3-6.'

9 minutes ago, dezzmont said:

This looks like a more fair version of Boba's ability, which makes it irritating to me that he wasn't in Scum so that they could "Dash" Boba and let scum have a really strong and efficient mega-ace that isn't an invincible tank.

I am also in camp 'There is no way Jango was actually a seperatist, if Boba wasn't imperial.' He actually would be a fantastic example of a good character to join Hondo as a 'neutral' named character, though obviously that doesn't work with pilots.

I hope they just flat out release a scum version of him, but I think sep firespray was a mistake. The only upshot is that it indicates cross faction ships are back on the menu, and I think those are good. Especially because it makes it easier to entice people to new factions with card packs: If H&A2 comes out with a sep and scum pilot, suddenly your Firespray you got for one is valid for the other and you have a very good reason to start collecting because the ship is such a big chonky ship that you can make it into most of a list already.

Low key that should have been done with the falcon too but I get the desire to sell more than 1 falcon to every 'goodguy nerd, because if the falcon was cross faction they probably could only sell 1-2 per player rather than 3-6.'

I think cis Jango has some merrit, but Zam Wessel? Clearly she is Scum as Jango should have been, with simply being able to be taken by cis.

4 minutes ago, Dwing said:

I think cis Jango has some merrit, but Zam Wessel? Clearly she is Scum as Jango should have been, with simply being able to be taken by cis.

It has merit, and if Jango was a 'both' card I wouldn't bat an eye.

But theme really matters to me, its part of why I play X-wing, and Scum Jango is just downright a strange choice that feels like it was made purely for business reasons.

Also yeah Zam being scum is just... not a thing at all. Again, if 'doing a job for a side without ideologically being part of it' made you part of a faction, why isn't Boba empire?

This would all be solved with strong ally rules in the game to allow characters who ideologically fit one faction really well but were part of the story of another make more sense: If you could take 2 factions per-list, with one being 'minor' it suddenly becomes really easy to have Boba fighting alongside his employer Vader, or Bossk with the Ghost, or Jango with Seps. Obviously that is a titanic rules change, but its so strange that in 2018 X-wing didn't launch with faction mixing mechanics and the more I think about it the more it feels like a huge miss-step of the edition done as part selling 2.0 as 'the love letter to tournament players,' which was obviously necessary but maybe not to that large an extent. Woulda been super easy to make it so that in Hyperspace you just get 1 faction, in extended you got 2.

Would also solve the looming 'High Republic-Sith Empire' problem.

Mad isn't the right word. "Disappointed" gets at it more for me. It just doesn't sit right all the way around. 5050Saint covers it well. I don't think it is a good ability either direction also.

Nice disruption of CLT, although Republic is so full of mods. He'll mainly be a better version of Vermiel, which is good, but not as impressive as I6.

Against evadeless Jedi/Vader trying to escape him? He'll hit like a freight train even without Juke. Or he'll pose that threat to those ships wanting to perform a white maneuver so they have to do something else. A subtle, but situational interaction I call "The Vonreg Effect."

17 minutes ago, Hoarder of Garlic Bread said:

Nice disruption of CLT

Actually, no.

Remember the other guy mods first. So the Jedi would rock up, roll his dice, Jango would have to hope that one of those came up a Focus, and then the Jedi would add the Focus result from CLT.

46 minutes ago, dezzmont said:

Also yeah Zam being scum is just... not a thing at all. Again, if 'doing a job for a side without ideologically being part of it' made you part of a faction, why isn't Boba empire?

Well to be fair there was a time when he was empire. Then ffg decided to push scum and put him in their starter (and gave him a great ability). Who knows 3 years from now they might shake stuff up and move jango over and buff him.

On to the main topic it doesnt bother me CIS lacks a lot of pilots that people are invested in. I think that is why they haven't done anything with asaaj yet (needs to be good). I think jango will help grow the faction.

I’m fine with it. I recognize it’s not consistent or most accurate possible to the lore, but at least Jango actively participated in a battle between CIS and republic forces while Boba never was directly involved with imperial vs rebel conflict.

As for Zam? Eh, she’s a subcontractor for Jango.

I think Asaaj will show up in the fan fighter. I think we have hit most of the iconic fighters so should be coming relatively soon at this pace.

Actually looking at the dial, to do a blue maneuver, Jango has to either 1-bank or go straight. That's not much. And since his maneuver has to be strictly less difficult, he mostly catches you on your k-turns or on the joust (if you approach at a non-blue speed). It also has much less use against many squads which 1-straight to victory, or have a lot of blues/like doing blues (fangs and interceptors with their turns, or A-Wings and FO TIEs with their everything).

Having played plenty of Scum Firesprays, yes the high-initiative boost is strong, but the fact that his arc is only ever front-back does still limit his ability to arc-dodge and still get a shot, with only the one reposition. Not to mention Slave I is Scum only.

That said, it's fine to have things you despise. I personally hate fighting CLT Jedi for a variety of reasons. And it was never a great list, but back when 4 U-Wings were a thing, that entire concept annoyed me to no end to play against.

4 minutes ago, Matanui3 said:

And since his maneuver has to be strictly less difficult, he mostly catches you on your k-turns...

Catching people on the K-turn (or any red move, really) is going to be entirely pointless most of the time, as that's when they're most likely either not going to have mods, or be relying on a previously banked target lock. Focus and Blank are likely the same thing as far as your opponent is concerned in that situation.

3 hours ago, DR4CO said:

Catching people on the K-turn (or any red move, really) is going to be entirely pointless most of the time, as that's when they're most likely either not going to have mods, or be relying on a previously banked target lock. Focus and Blank are likely the same thing as far as your opponent is concerned in that situation.

That’s not entirely true, with cards like Proud Tradition and Pattern Analyzer about his ability could be used more than we think. Proud Tradition shows us they are willing to go this way with actions being able to be used when stressed, albeit at a price.

I'm not mad. I'm not even worried.

His ability sucks. Stop worrying about him 'controlling your dial and actions' - he doesn't do that at all. Any Jango player is going to be way more stressed about dial setting than you are. Every single maneuver is going to be an internal debate of 'do I do the maneuver with the best positioning, or do I try and trigger the ability?' Every now and then, the 1 bank or 2 straight will be the optimum move and the Jango player will be ecstatic that he finally doesn't have to pick.... only to find you also did a blue forward and it still doesn't trigger.

Even when it does trigger, ask any Garven or Ten player about relying on eye results coming up when you need them.

I don't know why maybe changing your ideal action priority counts as 'controlling your actions'. You're better off taking a lock against Jango than a focus, so what? On attack, that still gives you the same odds normally. It means Jango compromises your defence a tiny bit. Big deal. While FFG have said he won't be as expensive as Boba, he won't be far off. And Sep Force crew are expensive. If that stacking worries you, then Force Jango is going to be a good half a list. Slightly compromised defence on one ship isn't much of a problem against that.

Not to mention I quite like the idea of an ability that might give you pause against using a focus. Seriously, the focus action is one of my least favourite things about the game. I hate that it's the default action, I hate that most of the time it's the best action to take because of versatility. Because it's the same odds as the attacking action and often better than the defensive action.

If there was no focus action, and most action phases required you to make an actual choice between the offensive lock action and the defensive evade action, I actually think the game would be better. So if Jango gets people out of that comfort zone and makes them actually consider actions other than focus, I'm all for it. And that's literally all he does . You haven't somehow lost the benefit of your action by taking a lock. You still have a lock. That's a perfectly valid thing to do. And you can still take a focus if there are any other ships around you might be worried about. You still get to benefit from that focus if you shoot someone else or someone else shoots you. Jango isn't taking your actions away. All he does is lightly persuade you to take a different action if you're one on one with him.

Is an I6 Firespray really all that much to worry about? I don't think so. Yes, he can boost out of some arcs.

If he gets to boost.

You seem to be forgetting a major part of why Boba is problematic. Because he benefits from being blocked . Throwing in a ship to block him just puts a ship at range 0 to fuel a re-roll.

Jango has no such gain. As it is, he's a medium base ship with an X-Wing dial that moves after everyone else. Meaning 95% of the pilots in the game can block him.

Jango isn't Fel. He's Wedge. Wedge with a bigger footprint. He's easier to block than Wedge, and Wedge is not hard to block. Yes, he's got that rear arc so he has the option of scooting straight past. There's maybe a bit more of a chess element of getting the block maneuver right, but I still don't think it will prove to be too hard.

Jango has no tricks. He has nothing that other I6 pilots use to offset their cost and make most use of their I value. No double reposition, no dial changing (outside of Seasoned Navigator, which interestingly virtually guarantees his ability gets turned off), no free re-rolls, no pre-movement reposition. He can't Collision Detector his way through an obstacle as an escape. He can't even buff his own dice. He's fat Wedge. He even has a similar, but way worse ability.

Like, if you're not worried about Wedge I can't think why you'd see Jango as a problem.

16 minutes ago, GuacCousteau said:

You still have a lock. That's a perfectly valid thing to do. And you can still take a focus if there are any other ships around you might be worried about. You still get to benefit from that focus if you shoot someone else or someone else shoots you. Jango isn't taking your actions away. All he does is lightly persuade you to take a different action if you're one on one with him.

Playing around with Genesis Red atm, this kind of action influence has actually been quite fun and interesting... for me at least.

18 minutes ago, GuacCousteau said:

Jango isn't Fel. He's Wedge. Wedge with a bigger footprint. He's easier to block than Wedge, and Wedge is not hard to block.

This feels like a valid observation. If Jango is attempting to overly leverage his ability, it restricts his dial quite a bit. Then you have a lot of points just sitting there, with no Slave 1 to dish out all the nope.

But even basic Firesprays can be a bit obnoxious with their ability to turn away and chuck 3 dice out the back, while tanking on 10hp, 3ag at R3. They are exceptionally easy to use, so that concern remains for me.

This is how FFG should be designing I6 pilots. They should have 'meh' abilities.

2 hours ago, GuacCousteau said:

Jango isn't Fel. He's Wedge. Wedge with a bigger footprint. He's easier to block than Wedge, and Wedge is not hard to block.

Jango isn't Fel, but he also isn't Wedge. He's Boba-lite more than either of those. I doubt Jango is easier to block than Wedge, as the 1 hard on the Firespray is bonkers good. He may be easier to block than Boba due to the lack of Slave 1, but he also isn't likely to brawl at range 1 like Boba since his ability isn't range 1 only. He can play lot more cagey or zoom over enemies when Boba would be 1 banking or 1 harding.

3 hours ago, Archangelspiv said:

That’s not entirely true, with cards like Proud Tradition and Pattern Analyzer about his ability could be used more than we think. Proud Tradition shows us they are willing to go this way with actions being able to be used when stressed, albeit at a price.

Not to mention the force or Networked Calcs.