How do you think this upgrade will Change the game? I can see why it would not work for the rebels to have a captive because the Empire would just see it as collateral damage to lose one of their own. They would probably blow up the ship the captive was in just to keep him from talking. But those goody two shoe rebels on the other hand would love to protect one of their own.

This card begs for a ship disable and capture mission scenario and rules to completely and permanently disable a ship for capture. Also a ship would be needed that can capture another ship and transfer personnel. I guess the YT-1300 or the HWK-290 would fit the bill for the capture ship.

What do you think?

Boomer_J said:

depends on whom the captive is.. just like in the games of chess, the pawns are collateral damage but you have to really think about losing your important pieces

and as for game changing? i think this card will be a must have for anyone that fly's a Lambda or firespray.. you can deflect fire away from the shuttle or at the very least, give stress to one of your opponents highest skill pilots.. so at close range they won't be doing a koiogran the next turn, which means they have a high chance of not shooting either

executor said:

Interestingly that also makes the hwk pilot whose ability is to make any one ally a pilot skill 12 for the combat phase very useful since the rebel player can deflect that stress onto a prototype pilot or gold squadron member.

This will get a little awkward in Imperial vs. Imperial games. The card should have a caveat saying that it only affects Rebel opponents.

Well if you're going to worry about the fluff then why are you playing Imperial vs imperial to begin with?

Renaming the card to just "Captive", meaning the captive belongs to the opposing faction, should do the trick.

I think this card maybe will be a good counter to high skill Push the limit-pilots (or do you really want 2 stress tokens on Wedge (or Sontir should you play mirror match)?

This will be one of the better cards in the game.

I hope they do have ways to captured ships. As that will make for interesting games.

Vonpenguin said:

In a tournament?

I like the card. Seems reasonabe for 3 points. I'm glad it is unique so you can only have one per squad, though.

Danthrax said:

But then would you also call for a rule that two opponents can't have the same unique card in their squad? A tournament environment by it's nature is "non-canon".

Frankly if it were my buddy on that thing and knowing the Empire up I wouldn't lose any sleep over blowing him up with it. Think about it, A/ they may make him talk, B/ they'll kill him anyway and C/ he/she will go through a lot of pain in the meantime. It's like shooting somebody that's burning to death when you can't save them.

On the subject of a scenario, perhaps that is what will be included with the Shuttle rulesheet? Either way I look forward to whatever they do include.

In terms of the effect on an Imperial vs Imperial, think back to the Tie Fighter PC game for those who played. Among the mission campaigns, there were two extended battle arcs that covered traitor fleets. Admiral Harkov offered his fleet's defection to Mon Mothma. Admiral Zaarin operating R&D went renegade along with his highly advanced command. Many of the missions were comprised of Imp on Imp battles. I'd say the Rebel Captive card doesn't necessarily have to refer to the Rebel Alliance in every case.

Boomer,

I really like this idea. I've been thinking about picking up a DX9 for a disable/rescue mission. I like this!

Vonpenguin said:

It's not even about canon, it's about making sense. It doesn't make sense for an Imperial squad to take stress tokens over a Rebel captive on an enemy ship. Obviously the faction matters, or else the card wouldn't specify that it's for Imperials only.

Unique pilot mirror matches are justifiable because it wouldn't make sense for the designers to do something as drastic as avoid putting unique pilots in the game. They don't have to make this card be the way it is, though.

I think the easy fix is to add a sentence to the card that says it only affects Rebel opponents. That would render the card useless in Imperial vs. Imperial matches, yes, but that would only make sense.

Is it a good card, yes.

But game-changing? Hardly. I mean if i have a good shot at the shuttle With say… Wedge, hell i will take it and the token. Certs it makes rebels a little more predictable but it comes at a 3 point cost and it is very situational. In many cases and situations the token will not affect the game in any way. If a K-Turn is not needed subsequently, i think it will have no effect at all honestly!

Danthrax said:

Scenario orders:

Rival Imperial Fleet 1 - "Take this rebel scum back to base for public execution. We know he has intel that Vader wants…too bad! This will reduce his standing in the Imperial court."

Rival Imperial Fleet 2 - "Lord Vader needs this rebel taken alive at any cost. Disable the prison ship carrying him and recover in a boarding action. God help the man who accidentally blows it up…"

We could imagine that in the game world, reducing the shuttle to exactly 0 hull points (without crits) will leave it dead in space without killing the occupants…

ForceM said:

Leaving aside the logic of "it's a good card" and "it will have no effect" in the same argument, I think you underestimate the impact here, for a few reasons.

First, the stress won't clear just by not K-turning - you have to do a green. For an X-wing that's not packign an R2, that give you a 1- or 2-ahead, and a 1-bank to choose from. That's a pretty limited set of maneuvers, and you're faced with that or losing your action.

Second, because it's the first ship that fires at the target each turn, it's going to disproportionately affect high-skill pilots. A classic Han Shoots First list will see Han eating the stress most of the time. Wedge, Vader, and Fel will also catch it a lot. It's really going to screw with Fel, whose playstyle expects to be picking up (and clearing) a stress each turn to keep his focus factory running. Give him two, so he's got no actions next turn, and he's a 30-point Academy Pilot.

Third, it piles stress on. K-turn and fire? Two stress. Kath running this can easily build a ship up to 4-5 turns worth of stress.

Finally, it may be showing up with the shuttle, but this is going to be an outstanding card on a Firespray. Making your heaviest hitter dish out stress when you attack him? Oh, yes please.

Buhallin said:

I was not contradicting myself, i just said it is a good card, but not game changing.

You are being extremely optimistic there.

A-wings and interceptors, especially Fel and Tycho can basically go green manoeuvers all day, plus they don't really care about stress tokens. Yes, Fel gets only one action, so does Tycho, but the ebb and flow of battle also don't leave them with a firing arc on that ship with the Fugitive every turn. So they will be able to get rid of stress nearly every turn and will not really stop shooting or taking actions. Also this is only assuming they play PTL, in any other case you are basically giving Fel a free focus only, and Tycho, well he will still just not care…

Concerning Han, i have played him a lot, and he does not really care a lot about stress tokens. Give him a gunner and he is fine even without actions. That is why i constantly win against swarms with him that try to block him down. I mean even if they succeed, i usually damage or kill a different Tie every turn. A shuttle or firespray will be no exception especially with agility one/two. You can say i am optimistic now, but that's my experience.

It will bother Wedge (and Vader), but Wedge will not stop shooting you for this. And really the only reason to not shoot would be a K-Turn absolutely necessary on the next turn. And as you said, with an R2, he will barely care at all. Very often, even with only an X-Wings natural green manoeuvers you will keep the target in sights, because a Shuttle will be probably not very manoeunvrable, and a firespray is surprisingly limited especially in an asteroid field.

Kath… that's a good one. I literally have never seen her skill be effective in a game at all. Not when played her nor when i watched her play. The captive may at least assure that you can reliably dish out some stress tokens like you are supposed to. So i suppose you would take marksmanship and the captive for her, and then optimally you would give 2 stress per turn to an enemy. That might do the job for you actually, but then a crit needs to be cancelled, which happens surprisingly seldom really. I really see her as the only one really running the Captive, because everyone else will only dish out one token per turn, potentially cancelling a K-Turn or forcing a green manoeuver but not much more. But at 2 or more tokens, it starts to get interesting like you said.

As is said, it is playable, will be sometimes very useful but far from always. So a good card but for 3 points nothing compared to something like a stealth device or push the limit. So not gamechanging, i think.

ForceM said:

I guess I should have been clearer about the game changing part. The change I was referring to was “ship disable and capture mission scenario and rules to completely and permanently disable a ship for capture”.

Viceroy Bolda said:

Where do you plan to pick up your DX9 from? Are they in 1/270 scale?

Patriarch said:

That could be a heck of a fun mission to run requiring Y-wings! Start the Imperial shuttle at its end of the board and use the senator's shuttle stats for it. For the mission it's hyperdrive is down and it needs time to repair and jump away but in the meantime it's slowed to a crawl. The Rebels have to disable it, using the ion cannons on the Y-wing fighters. The Imperial escorts must STOP the Rebels from disabling it. The imperial Shuttle is unable to power it's weapons so it's all up to the smaller fighters. If it makes it to the other side of the board and off it has jumped away and the imperials win. If it gets disabled the Rebels win.

Yah I used to play X-Wing for PC too :-)

KnightShift said:

Yes nice, but with wave 3 we could also take B-Wings with ion cannons for the disabling part!