I have played against and played with both the Falcon and the Firespray and I am either not very good with them (might be the case) or are they under-powered for the points cost you pay for them?

In most cases I can get 2-3 good fighters for the price of one large ship, yet the return on investment for the big ship seems lacking.

I think it's a firepower thing, they can take a lot of punishment, but 3 dice from the Falcon variants and 4 dice to the front only on the Firespray seem weak compared to 3 dice X-Wings and 3 dice Interceptors or even 4 ties with 2 dice each.

This would be less problematic if they could defend themselves better, but it's pretty easy to knock down shields and hull when you get 1/2 def dice and no real way to buff that.

Just a question I've been mulling over.

I've found the Firespray (Krassis to be exact) to be stupidly good, so I'm kind of going the other direction. The Heavy Laser Cannon on Thrax has a solid tendency to roll up 4 hits if you can focus, and since you don't get an extra die at range 3 those hits tend to stick. Krassis can cruise forward for multiple turns at speed 1, meaning the HLC can just keep firing - if your opponent pushes forward to get to the sides of Krassis, the rest of your list has a solid chance of dealing damage.

The last list I ran a firespray with was this:

Krassis Trelix, HLC
Howlrunner, Elusiveness
Mauler Mithel, Swarm Tactics
Alpha Squadron

I was playing against a 3 ship rebel list of Luke, Horton, and Wedge.

The game roughly went like this: Howlrunner took some early damage from Wedge, but Krassis + Howlrunner killed Wedge in 1 volley. The interceptor, Mauler, and a Heavy Laser cannon shot took out horton in two volleys, but I ended up losing mauler due to being ioned into an asteroid IIRC. The rest of the game came down to trying to chase down Luke and my opponent called it.

Overall, X-Wings just can't take 4 attack dice at Range 3 with only 2 defense dice, and when shooting back the x-wings are shooting 3 AD to 3 DD, so the firespray ends up only taking 1 damage, if any.

The Falcon I've been less impressed with so far - the 1 defense die means that damage seems to stack up a lot more quickly against the YT series, especially when flying against a Firespray w/ HLC.

If you start adding some of the new upgrade cards on elite X-Wing Pilots and A-Wing Pilots (read Push The Limit) and an R2 astromech for green manuveres on the X-Wings you can stay in the side arc and back arc of a Firespray with relative ease.

Being able to Focus and Target Lock almost every round ruins the opponents day.

Put Push the Limit and Stealth on Interceptors and it gets real nasty as you Evade and Focus every turn. I can stay out of your Firespray arc easily and if I can't, I have 4 def dice with an evade and focus if needed.

I can mop up your support ships quickly first with either build and then it's a case of just overwhelming firepower into the Falcon or Firespray.

I think overall fighters without big ships is a bit more flexible and can recover a bit easier from bad luck/roles…

Firespray can add some firepower with the HLC but I think the falcon/x-wing builds are better over all (at least for less expirenced players). They seem to work better as a unit, where as with Empire you are giving up one of your main advantages… numbers, to field the big ship. Where as with rebels you arent loosing as much fielding a bigger ship.

I also think the falcon is easier to fly, with the 360 you don't have to worry about orientation as much and can split your group a bit. Again forcing Empire (if they are your opp) to choose one group or another… while your firing options don't change much nor are they nearly as limited.

The gunner option on the falcon will pretty much produce damage each and every round, which makes the falcon much better.

My friends still haven't let me play empire with the firespray, it just seems the squads you can build with a firespray get down to 3-4 ships… Which can work against you a bit considering most of the strength of empire is in numbers.

Englishpete said:

You must have better luck with defense dice than myself. I've seen many 4 die rolls that come up all blank - I usually get at least one per game. I recently lost a stealth device on vader from a single hit, and in my last tournament I lost an A-WIng in a single volley from a HLC through an asteroid. 4 hits vs 0 evades and *poof*.

Push the Limits on Luke or Wedge + an engine upgrade is good in theory, but how do you survive the initial volley? When you take 3 - 4 damage from that first HLC shot, it doesn't take much more than a hit or two from the rest of the imperial list to kill that x-wing before turn 3.

Endgame124 said:

Well I don't think you can come up with a build where the assumption is you are rolling badly always and your opponent is rolling excellent always… That is part of the luck of this game… Rolls can make or break a match… or not.

Assumeing the HLC can do 3-4 damage each firing is a bit negative I think. More accurate is probably 2 sometimes 3 typically.

Big ships aren't the terrible ogres people expect them to be. They're mostly Very Large Support Ships.

The YT is a damage sponge, blocker, and team-player. Two of the three Aces for this ship help other fighters (Lando gives focuses, Chewy with Draw their Fire negates critical hits), it can block large areas of the playing field, and it has a 360 cannon to shoot at whatever you're shooting at with your other fighters. Also the fact that it rolls 3 Dice on a 360 attack means it's supporting with X-Wing cannons in all directions.

I haven't been as satisfied with the Firespray, but from how I've played it and seen it played, it doesn't respond to damage well, even compared to the falcon. The larger base and lower HP means that it can't shrug off damage well if the rebels decide to attack it. However it is tricked out with many upgrades and has a pretty decent firing arc. The HLC and mercenary gunner essentially let you fire constant proton torpedoes, so the Firespray seems to be a distance attacker doing a lot of damage so long as it's not the center of attention.

Admittedly, this is much harder to do than with Imps, close with them from the side if possible, use asteroids. If you have a 9,8,8 pilot skill, you'll shoot first, clear some chaff out, you will take hits but probably won't lose a ship. If you are well positioned, you might even get to shoot the big ship or chaff without facing the other. Then tuck in close, use those green moves. That large ship is going to be in range 1 and hating the next round of fire. With target lock and focus up it's in for pain.

On average, from 11 shots at range 1 (2 x X-wing, Luke and Wedge and 1 A-wing, Tycho or 1 Y-wing Horton) you will land 7-8 damaging shots on the YT-1300 and 5-6 damaging shots on the Firespray. Your also likely to get a couple of crits in as well.

Defense is the big ships weakness, they have few dice and pretty much can't escape your line of fire.

Englishpete said:

Defense is a weakness of rebels in general, unless you're going to run with lots of A-Wings. I wish I had kept track of what my opponent took in his Luke + Wedge + Horton list, but Wedge and Horton went down so quickly it didn't really matter. I think he took the right approach by trying to gun down Howlrunner before I could start triggering rerolls, but elusiveness ended up turning a crit into a blank which let her live. Just to be sure, elusiveness can be used after your opponent modifies all the rolls, correct? So he Burns target lock, burns focus, and then I can stress for elusiveness?

Endgame124 said:

Actually, no. Reference page 11 in the rulebook, under Modify Attack Dice: "If the attacker and defender both have abilities that can modify attack dice, the defender resolves all of his abilities before the attacker." So you have to use Elusiveness before either Target Lock or focus. It will "lock out" that die from being rerolled again (via Target Lock or Han or whatever), but it will not prevent an ability like Focus which merely changes the die without rerolling.

Englishpete said:

i've heard that attack rolls can only be re-rolled once; but ellusiveness is a defensive measure, and defense is calculated after attack rolls and attack modifications/re-rolls have been applied

so i'm also curious about a ruling on this

executor said:

Ziggy covered this perfectly… Yes usually attacker rolls and modifies dice… then defender does the same. The only exception is if the defender has modifications to the attackers dice… In that case:

1. Attacker rolls dice

2. Defender uses their ability to modify attackers dice

3. Attacker then can modify their dice if allowed by the no reroll rule.

4. Defender rolls his dice

5. Defender modifies his dice

dandirk said:

Well, that lowers the value of elusiveness a bit. I was only so / so on it before, now I may consider finding the room for ptl most of the time.

executor said:

It's a very common mistake, because it a very uncommon situation, and only applicable since the wide release of Wave 2. AFAIK Elusiveness is the only thing in the game (right now) that allows a defender to modify attack dice.

PtL on Interceptors is the money. Two actions a turn and easily shed stress just makes for a wicked combination, especially as you have 3 attack dice as standard.

Englishpete said:

They're not underpowered in any way. They do take some practice to get used to, however. (c:

dandirk said:

why would it be 2 then 3 and not 3 then 2? So you use elusiveness only to have the die rerolled?

Nevermind, a die can only be rerolled once. So once the defender uses elusiveness that die is locked, unless focused.