As part of another thread it was discussed that Boba get the Poe treatment, ie new Pilot card and ability and the old Boba be priced out of the game.
I understand that Boba has caused a lot of issue for casual games, I mean no one wants to bring their jank fun list to see a Boba/Dengar list sitting opposite it. It’s like Boba is strictly for tournaments, or you’re just trying too hard to win casual games.
I am interested in peoples ideas because while others loved Luke and Vader, ever since I saw Boba in 1981, he was my favourite Star Wars Character. He didn’t need the force or a fleet of ISD’s backing him up, he was his own man. So, how would you keep this iconic character relevant but not oppressive???

There are two options really: Continuity with the old version of Boba, but toned down to reduce the overly powerful defensive NPE, or a totally new Boba that focuses more on his 'by any means necessary, win any fight' nature. The second is harder, the first is easy.

Boba mainly is overwhelming because his defensive power is this layer cake of nonsense that makes good play unrewarding vs him and makes it so lists that aren't bringing a truly absurd amount of firepower don't just fail to trade into his points efficiently, but generally can't even halve him. I6+reinforce+defensive re-rolls that scale infinitely with incoming offense+arguably the best dial modification ability in the game makes him just this comically negative experience where good play against him is really hard, and even if you do it its just... not rewarded at all. So most of that nonsense needs to go and his kit needs to have a more obvious weakness than 'try to keep an I6 ship with an amazing dial, boost, bowtie, and probably the best dial setting ability in the game at a specific range.'

Slave 1 should be 'Dashed' alongside OG Boba, first of all. Its the kind of ability that just flatly should not exist in the game, forget on a bowtie ship. Just like how 1e turrets were bad because arcs should mean something, your dial should mean something. Boba gets way too much free displacement, which is also actionless, from Slave 1. This single element is part of why Boba is such a NPE: your very aware your opponent is basically playing with cheat codes and... basically isn't playing X-wing. Hera is already pushing it, and Guri while potentially landing in way more spots than Boba isn't able to as freely just displace such a wide area. The bowtie already makes it way easier for Boba to maintain uptime and reduces the mental effort of the ship a lot, he doesn't need this at all and it just pushes him into this stupid spot as an ace. Maybe make a new Slave 1 Title that is a once per-game effect so in a super clutch moment Boba can 'nope' out, but its wild to me that Luke gets an 'Ezmode tax' while Slave 1 gets to just be a super efficient and meta option. Perhaps make it a free boost after making hard turns, still some displacement, still giving the action efficiency of reposition as just part of setting a hard turn, but no longer 'oh now I basically can't EVER be 50/50'd.'

Second, just give his ability 2 recurring charges. That still lets him out 1v1 pretty much any ship in the game by offensively and defensively modding the first engagement followed by a double modded rear shot following through, but makes it so that sticking to Boba over multiple turns, or landing him in a ton of arcs, actually is meaningful. If I manage to get my entire list in arc on Boba, I shouldn't be rewarded with 1-2 damage MAYBE because I am firing 12 red dice. Boba should get messed up.

The key issue for any Boba rework is he can't both be a ship that can faceroll way beyond its points total AND be a super manuverable ace with absurd coverage and displacement. No ship in the game should combine those abilities, because that ultimately means the ship just has no weaknesses and is categorically the best at everything, which is obviously terrible design. Vader is a fantastic example of a well designed mega-ace in my opinion: Despite being ridiculously powerful, he is still fun to play against even as a rookie player because while Vader fights well above his points class, Vader can't just negate his player's mistakes, doesn't make good play against him impossible, and most importantly, dies spectacularly when you get a good turn on him, which is a highly desirable quality for a mega-ace. It feels so good to get a good turn vs Vader, unlike when you get a good turn vs Boba. Some of the most fun I have ever had in X-wing is having a turn where I shoot Vader right in the butt with a proton torp, its the polar opposite of firing a big turn vs Boba. Obviously Boba doesn't need to be exactly the same (Probably shouldn't explode fantastically after a good torp hit, for example), it needs to feel like you make real progress when you catch ANY I6 ship out with more than one ship, even if Boba's gimmick is 'has lots of health and a strong defensive passive so he can be a bit more gutsy and catching him out takes two turns.'

EDIT: Actually even that is a bit much. A problem with a 'turn reward' on a bowtie ship like Boba is that it is super powerful to have strong turns with a bowtie as it makes maintaining fire over multiple turns on a ship extremely hard without them getting return shots. Because a reworked Boba still probably needs a lot of uptime to crack and should reward you 'powering through' him, getting anything to help his turns is an issue. So I would say any mobility based title is a problem, despite the fact that hurts his ace cred a bit. He should be forced to depend on wingmates to keep the chase a 1v1 and just be the ultimate 'cagematch' ship.

With all that he could go down 10 points, and slave 1 could go back to 2 points.

@dezzmont Scum Boba is I5, not I6.

I don't like lumping in Hera with Slave 1. Hera's maneuver ability happens on a zero agility ship that doesn't have defensive re-rolls. You put 12 red dice on the VCX it gets messed up. Hera's ability is the ship's only defense. I still think Hera pilot should also have the Hera crew ability.

Just now, Frimmel said:

I don't like lumping in Hera with Slave 1. Hera's maneuver ability happens on a zero agility ship that doesn't have defensive re-rolls. You put 12 red dice on the VCX it gets messed up. Hera's ability is the ship's only defense. I still think Hera pilot should also have the Hera crew ability.

Depends on the Hera. She's a pilot in 2 ships in X-Wing.

I’m not entirely convinced Boba is super terrible for the game. He is bad for it, yes, but I don’t think it’s nearly as diabolical as any of the late 1.0 problems are.

Now, I agree do not bring him to casual game night. That’s just mean. But I also think you should not be bringing the other top tier meta choices to casual night either.

Well first off I'd shave his head.

Second off I'd give him a robe.

Third off, I'd ask this forum why they want things to be altered in a way that nobody'll play them, because the forum gravitates towards combos that are of course, hard to beat - and declare anything that isn't just past the cusp of busted, unplayable.

25 minutes ago, Hiemfire said:

Depends on the Hera. She's a pilot in 2 ships in X-Wing.

Point conceded. I am primarily referring to the VCX pilot.

While you're at it, do you also want to destroy/ban Moff JerJerod, Leia Crew(both), Seasoned Navigator, Kaydel Connix, the TIE Phantom chassi, Count Dooku, Deathrain, Precognitive Reflexes, Supernatural Reflexes, Advanced Sensors, R2-A6, BB, BB-8, Rebel Sabine Wren pilot(both ships), already mentioned Hera, Reapers, and Strikers? If not, why not?

1 hour ago, Cerebrawl said:

Moff JerJerod

No, because while Moff Jerjord does give your entire list bonus manuverability he does not invalidate the dial and prediction, especially as he is fairly telegraphed.

1 hour ago, Cerebrawl said:

Leia Crew

No, because Leia does not actually make it impossible to pin down your list, she just increases your uptime or evasion in specific burst windows that are extremely manageable for rebels. Resistance Leia is arguably more troubling because if played well you can make red maneuvers not exist for your squad, but generally is on a relatively easy to kill ship and, more importantly, is priced at 17 points which is quite a bit more than the 'auto include' price of Slave 1 even post-nerf which has a nearly 85% occurrence rate on the Firespray.

1 hour ago, Cerebrawl said:

Seasoned Navigator

Seasoned navigator comes at a significant cost to your future choices that makes flipping your largest turn matter on most ships, ESPECIALLY ships with bowties, which I believe don't exist natively at all unless you count maybe the Lancer. Blue hard turns (Which you need to even approach how good Slave-1's displacement is) are extremely rare on crew carriers. There is a reason that Seasoned Navigator is one of the lowest playrate upgrades ever.

1 hour ago, Cerebrawl said:

Kaydel Connix

Kaydel is a bit better than Navigator because your displacement is naturally higher by changing speed as well. She is also so terrible that she has seen play only 5 times ever in reported tournaments on Metawing. She is awful. Awwwfuuuuul. I can't stress the strong part of Slave 1 is stressless and spammable.

1 hour ago, Cerebrawl said:

the TIE Phantom chassi

It is a problem that has already been nerfed a lot, to the point that one TIE Phantom generic is 43 points. Still, unlike Boba, uptime on the Phantom IS rewarded, and the phantom's massive reposition is system phase. That makes it hard to predict, but means the phantom player has to make a hard read, rather than getting to essentially 50/50 their dial with perfect information.

Also important to note, Whisper had a lot of similar elements to Boba and is probably responsible for more nerfs in X-wing than any other ship, forget pilot, single handedly. Whisper strongly indicates powerful defenses that require overwhelming force to beat, plus offensive power and maneuverability, is too 'complete a package' and starts to break things in X-wing, which is why she jumped by 10 points, got Juke nerfed, and got the crew slot on the phantom removed. Boba has basically just been nerfed 6 points from launch, he arguably got off light.

1 hour ago, Cerebrawl said:

Count Dooku

Count Dooku is... fine? He is fine? He is fine. I don't understand his relationship to this at all to be honest. Is it his decent dice modding on crew? Sure but its on a 1 agility ship that can only remove 1 hit so your generally still chipping away at him very consistently, and the Sith Infiltrator, while manuverable for a large, is still a large.

1 hour ago, Cerebrawl said:

Deathrain

Not a fantastic pilot, and seems completely nonsensical to bring up. He gets a bonus action. The problem with Boba isn't bonus actions, its overloaded defensive ability. The Punisher is not a defensively strong ship both in terms of dice modding or the ability to just refuse to commit, so again I don't understand why he matters.

1 hour ago, Cerebrawl said:

Precognitive Reflexes

This is relatively minor displacement on par with Guri, which I mentioned before. Its really good, but its priced fairly appropriately by initiative and comes with some large sacrifices. Its also generally only available on ships that can't disengage and fight at the same time, and unlike Slave-1 while you can displace a lot the angle your ship is going at not changing unless you do a straight (which is countered by holding a tiny bit of distance) makes it much easier to stick on you. Its generally not that good, and sees very little play right now.

1 hour ago, Cerebrawl said:

Supernatural Reflexes

This upgrade was deliberately priced out of viability already, so... yes?

1 hour ago, Cerebrawl said:

Advanced Sensors

See precog. It actually barely sees play anymore now that Guri isn't HS legal, because Guri dramatically changed the value of Advanced Sensors.

1 hour ago, Cerebrawl said:

R2-A6

Same bearing 1 higher or lower is a relatively small amount of displacement akin to Hera's ability used on blue on the VCX. Its, again, not really played because it doesn't do much for you.

1 hour ago, Cerebrawl said:

BB, BB-8

Free bonus reposition is 'nice' but not 'busted.' It isn't the same thing as Slave 1, which is not just actionless but also significant displacement that makes dial prediction at close range impossible. A boost before a blue on an X-wing or Fireball isn't exactly the biggest transformation of your dial or the largest space to predict for, and the charges actually limit it pretty well in case something comes along that has a spooky amount of blue.

1 hour ago, Cerebrawl said:

Rebel Sabine Wren pilot

Free boosts or rolls pre-movement again, aren't exactly much to write home about despite being hypothetically good. They are nice but not especially wild. Both ships blow up very easily, even with the Assault Shuttle-Juke combo. Ultimately Sabine doesn't do enough to invalidate your dial to be remotely comparable to Slave-1.

1 hour ago, Cerebrawl said:

already mentioned Hera

Hera is either on an easily destroyed ship, or a ship that can't make fantastic use of the ability defensively. Worse, doing the trick with hard turns where you get the most displacement is a red move which sets you up for a bad time on following turns. If Hera had a very diverse set of blues (or to a lesser extent reds) we might have a problem, but the ships she can use limit her a lot in this regard.

1 hour ago, Cerebrawl said:

Reapers, Strikers

Both of these ships are actually a really cool design where on almost any other ship the ailerons would be busted but they basically have 'SLAM' dials to compensate. This makes them slippery but not so slippery that the net you need to cast is too huge, and, again, the difference between a boost left and right pre-movement isn't a crazy amount of control over you land compared to fully swapping your 3 hard or 1 hard and then boosting. If you 1 aileron left, and try to 1 hard right, you still are basically in the same spot as if you 1 aileron'd right, and went 1 hard right. Likewise, if you do a 3 hard, and change the direction you aileron'd, you do displace quite a bit, but someone who predicted you would end up going right still almost certainly has you in arc unless they really zoomed after you.

The fact these ships both lack native boosts, and are extremely fragile, helps a lot. If these things had 3 green like other TIEs then we would actually probably have a big issue here because then you couldn't 'dragnet' one with 2 low offense ships to kill it, but they still are killable if you get them in arc with a majority of your list, so even that wouldn't be as big a problem as Boba.

Boba is kinda unique. The closest thing I can think of to current Boba is actually Handbrake Han: Both ships are ultimately about points fortressing you by fighting comically defensively in a way that totally shuts down your ability to make clever approaches and have so much passive modding, health, and offensive power that they can face-trade and win almost every time vs most lists in the game, meaning that despite them having so much control over how engagements happen they have no incentive to do anything with that besides deny your intent to make clever trades. I think Boba is 'worse' than Handbrake Han for the game because Boba is more likely to have this effect 'by accident.' If two people throw together bad kitchen table lists, and one just has a Boba with slave 1, ignoring how he breaks almost every upgrade he uses or flying him as a points fortress, he still kinda crushes the enjoyment of the game. Compare to other fantastic pieces in X-wing: Bringing Rey right now, or Vader back when Imp Aces was all the rage, doesn't instantly turn the game into a tournament tier cagematch where fun has left the building. Vader is actually extremely fun to fight against! But Boba kinda... ruins the game just by himself in the hands of all but the most incompetent pilots. Your going to get total blowouts for the Boba side between two bad players in a way that will really hurt player retention. I have never seen someone quit the game over a single pilot, but I have seen it happen multiple times over Boba.

Its easy to say 'don't bring him to casual games' but if someone does that just creates an awkward situation for everyone, especially because the people who are most likely going to have a problem with it probably are new to the scene and feel the least empowered to actually challenge someone bringing it, and it just becomes this weird unspoken rule of good taste because now a newbie who wants to play their favorite Star Wars character is violating some taboo. It makes Boba almost transcendentally bad design, he is stepping outside of the game to ruin the actual play environment now and cause negative OOC experiences over player conduct purely by accident, which is kinda horrifying.

His competitive performance seems pretty ok right now. He is still a force in the meta but he isn't the entire meta like he was 6 months ago. His problem is that his core design kinda... sucks all life out of the game?

A few options.

• Weaker but mostly the same ability as the status quo
  • More Restrictive but Unlimited : While you defend or perform a Primary Attack, you may reroll 1 die if there is at least one enemy ship at Range 1.
    • #1 - Capped at a single reroll. Won't always matter, but having an upper bound is very nice.
    • #2 - Doesn't work if the only enemy ship is range 0, so Boba is less block resistant. That makes counterplay a lot easier.
    • #3 - Only benefits your primary attacks. Most Bobas don't equip secondary weapons, so this bit is mostly just a theoretical nerf.
      • Downside: it's the same, but more weaker, so it's kinda boring and unoriginal.
  • Jessika Pava Style Charge Based : 1 recurring charge on boba, and basically the original ability, but you have to spend a charge on Boba or a non-recurring charge on one of his equipped Illicit upgrades. I can't be bothered to type a good wording.
    • That's a pretty big nerf to only be able to use it once-per-turn as a default.
    • On top of that, only one Illicit upgrade he can equip has more than one charge.
      • Downside: few interesting options for Illicits to use, so it's mostly just "Boba is once per turn" and that's just dull.
• And now for something completely different
  • Get Punked Rerolls : While you perform an attack, if you are not strained, you may gain up to 3 strain tokens to reroll that many attack dice.
    • Potent offensive powerhouse, but dude opens himself up to getting clowned by a blind Han Solo and knocked into Sarlac. RIP.
      • Downside: still a potent offensive powerhouse. At least he's a lot easier to kill. This is also fitting to me--IMHO, Boba is a loser. Good at disintegrations, but nothing else.
  • Scummy cross between Dash and Test Pilot Blackout : Overlapping obstacles does not prevent you from performing attacks. While you perform an attack, if you or your opponent is overlapping an obstacle, your opponent rolls 1 fewer defense dice.
    • You'll still lose actions, so be careful.
      • Downside: Well, it's just really different. Does this still feel like Boba Fett to people?

Can we just take a moment to appreciate how anti-thematic his ability is? Range one is the trigger distance? Did they just forget that Boba was always a range hunter and the Fett family hasn't had good luck with getting stuck in CQC.

Jango got pretty worn down by Obi on Kamino up close, then died to a charge with a sword against Mace. Then Boba got melee crit, by a blind guy, with a stick . And then melee chomped by a sarlacc for good measure. Even in their ships the Fett family don't get far unless they're behind you.

I've just always thought the ability choice was funny. I thought they'd have done something different from the get go lol 😂 😜

I probably prefer to just hard errata him with and 2 charge 2 recurring recharge. Still pretty powerful but concentrated fire will have a better affect.

How about- When you defend or perform a primary weapon attack from your forward firing arc, you may re-roll a dice for up to two enemy ships in your auxiliary firing arc. OR At the start of the game, choose one enemy ship. Assign the "Termination Ordered" condition to it. Termination Ordered- When Boba Fett performs an attack against this ship, he may re-roll up to three dice.

These seems more "Boba Fett" to me, as he focuses fire on one target, ignoring/avoiding the others. The condition seems a little strong, though.

""When you defend against an attack in your rear arc, gain two charges

When firing primary from your front arc, you may spend one or more charges to reroll that many dice.""

Two non recurring charges. He gets the jump on you in the beginning, but his ego gets in the way and he doesn't get that hunters instinct back until he is put back in danger. Getting free rerolls is still really good. And it plays on what the Firespray is designed to do.

In from leftfield. Put him back on a large base.

Just him. Not the others.

What?

Put him in Slave II.

S&V players are begging for a new release, eh?

36 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

Put him in Slave II.

S&V players are begging for a new release, eh?

Needs to be brought back into canon first if I'm not mistsken. It'd be interesting to see how they'd set it up to be different from a bastard child of a YV-666 and a Jumpmaster.

Just remove the "when you defend" part. The problem is 100% that he gets free defense, right?

Maybe add a free, perhaps weaker, Veteran Tail Gunner effect. It's a real bad card, but it would slightly "compensate" for the lost value of his rerolls by sometimes letting him use it twice in a turn.

3 hours ago, Hiemfire said:

It'd be interesting to see how they'd set it up to be different from a bastard child of a YV-666 and a Jumpmaster.

Sensor slot(military grade sensors), turret slot(ion cannon turret), cannon slot(tractor beam projector), and rear facing torp launcher. 2 primary maybe?(2 blaster cannons). Also heavy shields, and good engines, so good dial? Seems fun. Also this is an older, more experienced Boba, so i6?

I’d give him a pilot ability based off the crew version. Start in reserve then deploy on an obstacle in system phase of second turn - properly get the jump in somebody.

Move the toughness/dice mods onto Slave I title.

Boba Fett: No Disintegrations

2 charges, nonrecurring.

While you perform a primary attack, you may spend 1 charge to roll one additional attack die.

After you perform an attack, if both of your charges are inactive and the enemy ship would be destroyed, you must recover both charges to remove all damage cards and make the enemy ship suffer [hits] equal to its printed hull value - 1.

1 hour ago, Des Darklighter said:

Boba Fett: No Disintegrations

2 charges, nonrecurring.

While you perform a primary attack, you may spend 1 charge to roll one additional attack die.

After you perform an attack, if both of your charges are inactive and the enemy ship would be destroyed, you must recover both charges to remove all damage cards and make the enemy ship suffer [hits] equal to its printed hull value - 1.

Boy, this would make attacking a 1-health ship feel so bad .

Something like this?

Boba Fett: Best in the Business

During Setup, assign either the "No Good to M e Dead" condition, or the "Everyone Dies" to one ship of your choice. When the chosen ship is destroyed, you may assign the chosen condition to another ship.

"No Good to me Dead" - When you defend against an attack from Boba Fett, you may change any result to an (Evade) result. If you do, you receive one Stress, one Deplete, and one Jam token.

"Everyone Dies" - When you defend against an attack from Boba Fett, you must reroll all (Evade) results.

This gives you a clear choice during setup - do you turn Boba into a vicious hunter who can utterly annihilate a single ship, even the strongest of aces? Or, do you turn him into a strong control piece that prevents enemy damage from getting through? Both of these are kinda NPEs in their own way, but, it's only one ship at a time. Which is a big difference to it being every ship, all the time.