I dont rate it. The are much better things to spend the points oneven if you're comboing it with missiles, the best missiles change some results to damage anyway, so it kinda limits its effectiveness.

Having saidthat it may well be worth while trying it on a firespray or the yt. But even then i see it having very limited use

I dont rate it. The are much better things to spend the points oneven if you're comboing it with missiles, the best missiles change some results to damage anyway, so it kinda limits its effectiveness.

Having saidthat it may well be worth while trying it on a firespray or the yt. But even then i see it having very limited use

Marksmenshio + heavy laser looks good. especially if you use the pilot who makes cancel crits get a stress

Torresse said:

SLAVE-1

7

3

2

6

4

Unique

When attacking, the defender receives 1 stress token if he cancels at least 1 result.

seems pretty decent with marksmanship, ur right.

The_Brown_Bomber said:

Torresse said:

Marksmenshio + heavy laser looks good. especially if you use the pilot who makes cancel crits get a stress

Kath Scarlet (38)

SLAVE-1

7

3

2

6

4

Unique

When attacking, the defender receives 1 stress token if he cancels at least 1 result.

seems pretty decent with marksmanship, ur right.

When attacking, the defender receives 1 stress token if he cancels at least 1 result.

Torresse said:

It's a pity that heavy lazer cancels all crits…

Eruletho said:

Well, right after rolling you immediately change all crits to hit… then you use markmanship to change a focus to a crit.

ArcticSnake said:

which is what makes mercenary pilot good too, can you imagine getting 2 crits, one crit goes through and the other gets canceled to give a stress.

Sgt. G said:

But can't you do basically the same thing with a completely un-upgraded ship using focus? Sure you don't get the crit, but Three points for a chance at a crit that can't be used at all for defense.

Hrathen said:

So, IMO, when you combine the up-front point cost of Marksmanship with the opportunity cost, it's not worth taking unless one of the following applies:

1) You can augment it with a defensive action (Focus or Evade). This erases the downside, but it's only feasible for Vader.

2) You're using it to boost multiple attacks each round (Cluster Missiles or Gunner). Here it looks a lot more like gaining Focus twice, with the crit thrown in as a bonus, and that's definitely worth 3 points.

I think it has it's uses. Is it useful on every pilot? No certainly not, but then that is the same with every Elite upgrade.

On Luke it is useful, especially if he has R2-D2. This is because Luke's pilot ability is already a quasi focus for defence so giving him a bit more offense doesn't hurt. Vader also can make good use of it because of his second action which allows him evade or whatever. Also as was said taking it with a ship that has a copilot slot is useful as well. Should you take it every time? No, but it is certainly not the worst upgrade in the game. That honor goes to Determination. With only 8 out of 25 damage cards being pilot related there are better things to spend 1 point on. (especially now with the new cards) Sometimes you just don't have enough other stuff to take and have a few extra points left over. In those case's it's 3 point cost isn't as bad.

Acebaur said:

No.

Determination is an adequate upgrade. It is mostly used to provide a minor benefit while adding ways to reach the point cap to avoid initiative. Negatting 8 of 33 crits is acceptable for 1 squad point. I've never gone out of my way to add it to a ship, but I have used it to reach 100 points quite often. With the new 1 point upgrades in Wave 2, it can be replaced by other upgrades but it still has uses over Draw Their Fire, Veteran Instincts, and Deadeye.

Marksmanship is terrible because everything else either does more or costs less (or both). For the same amount of points, Push the Limit allows for more damage on average, more versatility, more synergy, and only has a minor drawback that is easily worked around. It basically turns any ship into a pseudo-Vader.

Even if Push the Limit didn't exist, 3 points is still a lot. That's enough for a Stealth Upgrade, a combination of other upgrades that will be much better than Marksmanship, and/or getting a pilot with a better ability.

ok imagine cluster missles, marksmenship on Kath Scarlet (Ill memorize these names eventially without having to open my box) I know its rather costly, but its brutal none the less.

Marksmenship as of wave 1 I only see myself equiping it on Luke (if I have a dutch to add TL), Darth Vader (though I probable wouldnt in a very competative game) or Marrek Steele (whom I wouldnt bring in a competative game….)

Is it useless and cause you to lose the game? No. You must know when to focus and when to marksmenship. Is there better abilities? It depends on your play style. I probable will take marksmenship only on Kath Scarlet and Marrek steele once wave 2 hits for everone else. in fact I may see Marreks ability coming to life if he ever fights a slave 1… or falcon….

People have been talking about how Marksmanship is slightly better than Focus if you know you are going to be going offensive. Take for exampley you have Vader and you can take two actions, so your other one is evade.

Though it doesn't do the same thing, Target Lock, fulfills the same roll as an offensive action, and it is way better than marksmanship. Yes it is differnt, its mechanics work completely differently, but if you know you are going to be attacking durring the action phase you can use a Target Lock as your action and get more return on your action then a Marksmanship action.

Again there are some small uses where you would want Marksmanship instead of Lock on Target OR Focus, but they are a pretty small subset of all the situations you will be facing and, Here is the thing we will never get away from, Marksmanship costs 3 points.

If it were free I might use it sometimes, I might even use it if cost 1 point, but there is so much more I can do for 3 points

My one issue with this upgrade card is that you are expending points to get a minor upgrade to the focus ability that all ships already have. As a previous poster already stated, a focus is much more versitial since it can be used for defense or offense in the same turn. The points you spent on this card are better played as 1 point droids on your ships.

Three points does feel a little Steep, but I have been using marksmenship on the cheap Black squadron ties. I have 2 in my 7 ship build tie swarm.

I don't like it for the same reasons all you think it is aweful:

1) too many points i comparison to other upgrades

2) It is like focus, but I cannot use it in a defensive roll and I feel like my ties are vulnerable while waiting to shoot

Some of the practical good things that have happen that kept it in the list.

1) Crits are last to be removed when compaired to the evades so they are more likely to stick

2) There are 8 two damage cards, plus 2 minor explosions (which can cause 2 damage) and 2 consol fire (which can cause multiple damage). this has gotten me far enough in putting out damage that is makes clean up easy for my academy pilots. The remaining 4 ties only have to deliver 1 damage instead of 2. I cannot tell you how many ties I have taken down Biggs or Wedge in one pass simply because I managed the extra damage and took them out instead of leaving them with one health.

3) In conjunction with Howlrunner this card gets retarded. At range 1 I am throwing 2-3 damage from each of these pilots that is a lot to dodge for a poor x-wing not to meantion Y-wing.

4) a lot of crits limit your opponents choices in the next turn either by taking away their action completely, or buy forcing them to take an action to flip the card over, or stresses out the pilot. With a crit'd ship your options are fairly limitted and that can make your movement more predictable.I found this especially true when facing a tie swarm as it limits what their formation can do it they want to stay in formation.

I would never say I am an authority on tactics or gameplay. These are practical impressions I have gotten from the card, rather than a theoretical impression.

dbmeboy said:

Whe you use Focus and Cluster Misiles, you can only use the focus in one attack, and when you use Marksmanship you can use in both attacks, for example, in the fist attack of the cluster Misiles you get two Eyes, you spent the Focus but if in the second attack, you get two Focus again, if you do not have the Marksmanship, you can not change the eyes in the dice, so I prefer to use with Darth Vader that can perform two Actions, one to target and another to use the Marksmanship, or with Mauler Mithel, wich can attack with 4 dice at range 1, greettings.

The only way I can see Marksmanship working with other Wave 1 stuff is in these very specific contextual circumstances- with Clusters and/ or Marek, possibly on Backstabber as he rolls more dice anyway, etc.

The problem I think most people see with Marksmanship is trying to trigger all of those contextual variables that make Marksmanship worthwhile versus other upgrades.

Can a Marek + Marksmanship combo work? Sure. But for one more point, why wouldn't you just use a contextually unstoppable Vader + Swarm Tactics combo instead?

The issue, in my opinion is that Marksmanship requires an Action and that Crits aren't more damaging to ships with shields. If either of those things were different, or could be mitigated with a different upgrade/ Pilot Talent/ whatever, Marksmanship would be great. The way it is though, I think most opponents will not let the Marksmanship pilot force that much influence over the variables to get it to work reliably.

I posted this in a different thread but I believe this argument validates "Marksmanship" more than any other.

Think about "Dark Curse" with a stealth device. No focus can be spent against him and no rerolls. He also now has FOUR green dice.

What I've found that works best against Stealth Device and Dark Curse combo are four different tactics.

1.) As I've mentioned else where in this thread using multiple Assault Missiles to deliver splash damage to him. You now only need to deal one damage to take him off the board.

2.) Proton Torps. It is risky as all hell, but you can change a die with out a focus use.

3.) Using a YT-100 with Luke as a copilot. On that second attack he can change one focus die to a hit.

4.) The most affective, Wedge. Three dice on three dice favors the shooter statistically. Now you cannot reroll or focus against Dark Curse but you can use marksmanship. OH MY GOD! There is a use for this card!

Before Worlds my cousin asked me why I don't use "Dark Curse" in my list and I said, "Any chump with Marksmanship will shoot him down." I've played against the Dark Curse Combo three times now and I've found that after using him with Marksmanship in two games against it, Wedge rocks it. Any pilot with this upgrade can do it but Wedge does it the best. Which now brings up the age-old argument how to keep him on the board long enough to get the points out of him?

I'm betting on every Imp list will be running this combo by summer and the only way to get an advantage against it is listed above in the Wedge debate.

I knew in my worst fears that there was a reson for Marksmanship that we hadn't seen yet. This combo is it.

3 points WORTH IT!

The only way i found marksman to be useful was running vader with squad leader and maarek running marksman and concs, the plan was maarek target locks, vaders sacrifices an action to give maarek the ability to then use marksman, maarek unleashes concs and assuming it goes well smashes a target, even then it relied on a very expensive 1-2 punch to get the job done

Marksmanship is AMAZING on either of the large base ships with a gunner. The Marksmanship gives you a boost even with the secondary attack. It is so broken on the Falcon.

Picasso said:

In the latter case, the consequence of missing is a stress token--and the consequence of missing twice is two stress tokens. So go ahead, park your A-wing with Push the Limit and a Stealth Device behind that asteroid…

Vorpal Sword said:

That's right where Tycho will be hiding, and let the stress tokens pile up, he doesn't care…

@Ziggy

I don't think his ability is all that great. I think his pilot skill makes him better. The reason I am saying this is because the A-wing has 8 green maneuvers. So there are 8 easy ways to get rid of the stress.

Picasso said:

This is something I think we kind of lose track of sometimes on here. Recall that the Wave 2 ships were supposed to come out, what- 2 months after Wave 1?

Maybe I'm just kidding myself and the delays were more about prepping rules or something, but I think there are a lot of combos/ synergies/ whatever you want to call it, yet to be discovered between the Wave 1 stuff and the Wave 2 stuff.