I am a new player to the game, but a veteran of miniatures games including other "boat style" games like Battlefleet Gothic and Uncharted Seas. After playing my 3rd game with my Imperial Fleet (2nd game at 100) I have to say "wow Barrel Roll is kind of rediculous." Granted I don't have a lot experience with this game in particular, but holy cow was it super unfair and unfun for my Rebel opponent. We each had 4 ships, and he maybe got to shoot with 2 of them twice, and any other time it was only with 1 ship a turn. He ended up conceding after I killed 2 of his ships without killing any of mine (though one did have only a single hull point left). Being able to shift from side to side, and then scoot forward or backward on top of it offer an insane amount of mobility. There were turns early on when I did it with 3 or more of my fleet, dodging out of almost every firing arc, or at the very least switching range bands to make myself safer. I then combined that with Vader giving a ship who could be targeted an extra action from squad leader, so I ended up with shennanigans like Barrel Roll taking me out of all arcs but one and scooting into range 3 with the move then Evade from squad leader.

I realise that X-wings have higher firepower than me, but when only one of them gets to shoot a turn it sort of takes away their advantage. I have to imagine that being on the other end of something like this must be very frustrating. Is this sort of manouvering commonplace?

I agree. The more I play, the better I realise barrel roll to be. But not just for moving out of the way. Throwing low-Pilot skill TIEs into the path of your enemy and making them overlap is nasty.

However, you do realise that you can only barrel roll after you move, right?

Effective maneuvering is one of the most, if not the most important aspect of this game. It's also one of the tougher aspect of the game to learn for new players. Barrel Rolls make this aspect of the game much more forgiving for a new Imperial player than the new Rebel player that subsequently has to deal with it.

In all likelihood, you're probably playing it correctly and he's just having a hard time, but to clarify a couple of things to be on the safe side-

• Barrel Rolls are actions. As such, you have to execute your Barrel Roll right after your move that particular ship. If you move ship A, he moves ship B and gets you lined up in his sights, then you Barrel Roll ship A out of the way, you're playing it wrong.
• As Barrel Rolls are actions, you can elect to use no other action for that turn (eg. Focus or Evade). Unless of course, you're Vader.
• When you Roll, you place the 1 template straight to the side so that it doesn't overhang any part of your base to the front or back. This does allow some forward or backward movement, but much less than if you could place the template so that it hangs off your base.
• It is not allowed by the rules to Barrel Roll into a collision or Overlap type situation.

One thing I try to do to mitigate the effects of Barrel Rolling as a Rebel player is to deploy my ships in two groups, one each towards the corners of my deployment zone. As I move them forward, I try to get one out in front of the other- not a ton, maybe the size of a straight 2 or so. I try to keep this form until contact with the enemy, at which case it all gets interesting anyway. I've found this to be much more effective early in the game than just setting up 4 ships in a straight line in the middle of my deployment area and early game is the part you need to be careful with if you're playing Rebels.

As things go on and the weaker ships get thinned out, that's when the Rebels can start to take some chances as they're usually in much better shape hull/ shields-wise and hopefully, approaching the point at which they have the Imps outgunned with the amount of attack dice left on the table.

I also don't generally scream forward at top speed until contact with the Imps like I used to. Playing Rebels,it can be easy to get this Space Marine armor save syndrome where you're thinking, "I've got shields and 3 attack dice! Come get some, Imps!" That's a bad idea. Mess around a little bit- do some 1 moves and 2 moves. Try and stay away from the center. Make the Imperial player turn those TIEs, incur some bumps and lost actions (and therefore Barrel Rolls) because of it, then pounce.

TL:DR, you're doing it right, he's doing it wrong. Tell him not to worry though- this is definitely one of those games you get better at the more you play it.

I don't think it is unfair. It seems to be a good balance to the rebel's tough ships that can all target lock.

It can be very powerful if used effectively alother it does take away any opportunity to focus or evade if you are in the midst of a cluster of ships. I wonder how many play with asteroids? I ask because I noticed they seem to reduce Barrel roll opportunities in a standard 100pt game as I witnessed at the Kessel Run event.

To throw in my own thoughts on the Barrel Roll;

It seems cheap to be on the other end of it as the Rebels, but that's because a lot of new players forget, or don't appreciate, that the Barrel Roll is always an option for TIE's. I find that as the Rebels, I need to plan my moves where I can imagine where all my ships will end up, facing-wise, and visualize where all their firing arcs overlay on the board. I try to create enough coverage that it makes it somewhat difficult for TIE's to escape all my firing solutions.

Also, as a Rebel player, this is where the Y-Wing shines. That Ion Turret has a 360 degree firing arc, so any TIE's at Range 2 are basically wasting an Action to Barrel Roll to get to the side of a Y-Wing, since you're rolling 3 dice regardless, and now they can't Focus/Evade to improve their survivability/damage output.

The YT-1300 will further add to this, with that beefy Range 3 360 Primary Weapon attack with 3 dice.

I realize that the YT-1300 is only in select hands right now, but the Y-Wing has been around since the beginning, so from a pure list-building perspective, assuming you have all the models at your disposal, that's one easy way that Rebels can take some of the sting out of Barrel Rolls.

The Ion Turret Y-Wing is easily a staple for me in my matches now for this reason. If you hit, you also neuter the TIE's movement for the next turn, so an X-Wing nearby should have an easy enough time swooping into Range 1 for the 4 Attack Dice.

If your opponent is running all X-Wings, then they have to try and be more creative in their movement. As it was mentioned above, I feel that for all the upgrades we have that allow more shields, more attack dice, etc, the real game changers (for me, at least) are the ones that somehow allow me to buff up my movement phase to gain a more favourable position on the board.

That's why Vader is so beast. You can set up a Target Lock/Missile attack on a turn, and still use the extra Action to Barrel Roll if it helps get you out of fire, or take an Evade for extra defense.

Turr Phennir lets you take a free Boost or Barrel Roll (remember you can't take the same Action twice in one turn) after an attack. At Pilot Skill 7 (or higher if you Swarm Tactics him in with Vader/Soontir Fel), you can play chicken with a Rebel Ship, then scoot out of the way to safety after blasting away with your 3 dice (4 at Range 1).

Soontir Fel lets you pull red maneuvers and gain a free Focus token for your troubles, so you can loop behind someone's firing arc and blast away, ideally at Range 1 for 4 dice and focus. At Skill 9, he's usually moving last, so your opponent will have already chosen their actions, not able to react to your acrobatics.

Fel's Wrath lets you still get your attack for the turn if you had a bad maneuver phase and Wedge came in to give you the death blow.

Howlrunner rewards your ability to maintain a good formation by buffing your friendlies with re-rolls.

Backstabber gives you an extra attack dice for attack from outside the opponent's firing arc.

Mauler and Winged Gundark both provide additional attack bonuses for getting into Range 1

Night Beast gives you a free Focus when you pull a green maneuver, so you can do a short move and option in a Barrel Roll or Evade on top of that.

Dark Curse prevents opponents from using Focus tokens and attack re-rolls against him, in case you pull a bad maneuver phase.

Most of the named Imperial TIE craft give you some kind of edge with the positioning of your guys to basically set up a situation where you can shoot them, and they can't shoot you, and give you a damage boost for pulling it off.

As the opponent, facing this, you need to do what you can to cripple this, which is why, as the Rebels, I always go back to my trusty Ion Turret to take that away from them. It's not the only answer, I just find it amusing, personally, when you can isolate that pesky TIE pilot from the group and send him off the table in flames.

It's not easy, by any means, but with experience, you learn to anticipate your opponent's moves, based on the game state at any one point in time.

Another piece of advice; Inside the ship booster packs, there is a movement dial reference chart. Grab a sharp blade and a ruler and cut it out of the packaging. I place all my pilot/upgrade cards in sleeves, and I also sleeve the movement charts. When I play, I keep a stack of all the charts for the ships on the table, Rebels and Imperials both, handy for reference. When I plan my moves, I find it easier to see my options by referencing that, rather than spinning my dial around. It also lets me see what my opponent could potentially do as well, and make good decisions based on that information.

Once you get better at movement, you can start pulling off some ballsy maneuvers and clutch out a lot of wins with your antics.

For instance, I had an opponent at a Kessel Run match that full on didn't expect my to naviagate a really tight spot of asteroid tokens with my X-Wing, but I totally did and that Rookie X-Wing popped out with a free round of Target Lock'ed shooting for a quick kill because of it.

afilter said:

With asteroids, I find I am mostly using barrel roll to move my ships in order to avoid collisions with them in the next movement phase. Every once in a while I will use it to adjust my firing arc if my opponent surprises me with their movement.

Barrel Roll is always particularly powerful for and against a new player. Once you gain some experience maneuvering, it is still powerful, but hardly overpowered. It quickly becomes important to keep Pilot Skill in mind, and if you have a higher Pilot Skill, a lot of the times that complicates the situation enough to where an Imperial pilot will have difficulty using Barrel Roll, as they will be reacting, and it is significantly more difficult at times to execute a functional Barrel Roll unless you know exactly where the opponent's ship will be at the conclusion of the movement phase.

Just a quick aside about conceding the game, in my experience I've found that games can go back and forth quite easily at times, so just because he's lost a couple ships doesn't mean he's doomed. Just something to keep in mind.

The way I negate barrel rolls is I force a straight on battle. I go straight at my opponent with everything Ive got. If your square with each other, then his barrel roll will either, get him out of range to fire (which is out of both of yours) or get him in range to fire (which is in yours) the only way barrel roll will help him if you squared up is if you get behind him. Also its worth noting that astroids make the play space smaller for the rebel opponent to figure out where the imperial is going to be at. I beleive the maker of this game said Barrel roll is the best action in the game

Barrel roll works best when using higher skill pilots, as they can see where their opponent's final ship positions are in order to choose whether to barrel roll or not, and how much of a benefit. Barrel-rolling with lower skill pilots is as much of a 'guessing game' as choosing your maneuver. Typically, barrel-rolling before your opponent moves does not end up moving the ship outside of fire arcs, etc.

cleardave said:

good point about the Y-Wings 360 degree firing arc negating the effectiveness of barrel rolling. something i hadnt considered. the fact that rebels can also take expert handling seems to balance things up as well.

Perhaps some asteroids would help the situation. I lucked into killing the Y-Wing first in the posted game, and in my most recent game specifically started to target them first (there were 2) and the 360 arc certainly did make barrel roll less optimal when I got in close.

I still found barrel rolls to be extreemly potent in this game. In the midgame I would often choose to not have proper angles to shoot with 2 or 3 of my ships just so I could not be shot at in turn, leaving a lone ship to fire on a couple rounds. One or two TIEs might not do much, maybe only getting rid of 1 hit or two, but when you take nothing in return it was more than a good enough trade. I lost my regular TIE early and was playing 3v4 for most of the game, and ended up with all 3 or my remaining ships alive at the end of the game.

More shennanigans this game as I find Vader with Squad Leader to be an intergral part of the "Barrel Roll Team." The fact that he goes last when moving and performing actions is way more powerful that I even could have imagined before playing this last game. A few choice combos are something like seeing who could actualy in range to be hit by something that turn (premeasure those barrel rolls) and having them use focus (because it is good no matter what). Vader then goes after everyone else, measures ranges, and gives the ship who can't barrel roll to safety evade on top of focus. Another one that I actually used twice that game was checking my Target Lock range, which happened to also be the fire range of an enemy, seeing that I was just barely in and using TL. Then when Vader went last he had the ship barrel roll out of TL range after they had already locked that turn, making it so they couldn't be targeted and setting my up with a lock for a later turn at the same time. Having him go last really helps if you have low pilot skill because Barrel Rolls aren't "guessing" anymore, you can clearly see who is in range or not. Just issue the order and they do it on his turn.

On a side note, can I give the stealth mod to anyone? 4 defense dice with focus and evade seems even more insane, and I would be willing to drop missiles for that.

Every ship can be equipped with one Modification card.

Would barrell roll be more in line with other actions if it required you to stress the pilot?

I LOVE how'd offering the ships and abilities are from each other, but how well balanced the game is. I tend to play the Empire more, if given the chance, but both sides have their abilities or options that can be considered cheap or unfair especially due to biased players. While the barrel roll may seem like crap, it gets a TIE in position to at best, lob 3 dice to shoot with. That's for the standard TIE and pilot. The rebels get to, with a target lock, reroll misses, and then use a focus action to still hit. Not to mention they have astromechs that some of which can undo any progress the Empire makes at damaging the rebel ships.

Come on. There are strengths and weaknesses to both sides.

The Amazing Flight Lizard said:

well said. totally agree.

cleardave said:

Another thing that I found out that works real well with him during the Kessel Run tourney was the upgrade card "Daredevil". For 3 points it allows you to do hard 1 turns as part of your Boost action, with the turn counting as a Red Maneuver, gaining me the focus token. It enabled me to do a hard 2, a green turn for the TIE I which clears any stress, followed by the hard 1 which put the stress, and a focus token, back on. Using this combo I was able to stay on the tail of a wildly maneuvering A-Wing for 3 turns and killing it.

The Amazing Flight Lizard said:

So we are comparing a base 12 point ship with a ship around double its cost with a unique astromech that you have to pay more points for, and then performing an action that has to take at least two rounds to set up? I'm not saying that the game isn't balanced, just that barrel roll seems way more versatile than I could have ever hoped or imagined. I knew it was going to be good, just by looking at it, but it really exceeded my expectations. In fact I think if you are just using barrel roll to get in range for the extra dice for your attack you aren't getting enough out of it. I am not a chess grandmaster, let me assure you, so if I can find two or 3 inventive uses for it in just as many games, what could someone who has played a hundred do? It really does become so much better when paired with Squad Leader Vader, once again, exceeding my initial expectations. When I look at the indentically priced TIE Advanced next to the X-Wing, it really seems like no contest. Yeah astromechs are cool, but they do cost more points, and… "holy cow Barrel Roll!" I can only imagine that I will continue to get better and better at judging the movement distances and utilizing Barrel Roll. As it stands for my first few games I seem to consistently use it 2 or 3 times a turn in my 4 model squadron, until the mid to late game. It certainly gives me a large advantage on the turn 2-4 opening engaugement. I do think the A-Wings will go a long way in toning down the manouverability gap, and the Interceptor will help bridge the damage gap. Just need to wait a little while longer.

zathras23 said:

This sounds awesome, I can't wait!

I can tell you this about Barrel Roll: giving Expert Handling to a Firespray is nothing short of amazing. They get sooooo much distance out of a barrel roll due to their large base, it makes it almost impossible to avoid both of their firing arcs.

Tawnos said:

WOW, had not thought about that….there are going to be so many new possibilities with Wave2.

Daredevil and a modified engine would have some similar utility

afilter said:

Now pair it with Fett's ability and Pilot Skill…an ability I recently thought was weak, but suddenly becomes quite beautiful when you include Expert Handling.

It's also much harder to find room to barrel roll without overlapping another ship or an obstacle. Still pretty good, but boards get crowded and cuts down on large ships' abilities to use such things.