Hello all!

I've been giving some thought to running an imperial build with Soontir Fel, and I'm wondering about the relative values of Push the Limit and Elusiveness on Fel.

Here's why:

Soontir Fel's ability states that whenever he gains a Stress token, he gains a Focus token.

Therefore, Soontir WANTS something that will reliably give him Stress tokens such that he can reliably gain Focus tokens.

For example, after moving, Soontir Fel's player is concerned about Fel being shot - so he evades. His opponent opens fire, and rolls well - a Critical and two Hits. Fel chooses to use Elusiveness, forcing a reroll on the Critical, gaining a Stress token, and also gaining a Focus token. Fel now has a 5 in 8 chance of rolling an Evade on each die, and has an additional Evade in hand (thanks to his Evade action) in case he needs it.

In the above example, Fel has a very good chance of completely evading the incoming attack.

However, Push the Limit can be used in a similar way, but with slightly different results.

In the above example, instead of simply evading, Fel Evades and also Boosts, thanks to Push the Limit. Again, Fel has gained a Stress token, so he also gains a Focus token. He has the same odds of evading each 'hit' or 'critical' result, but he doesn't get to force the reroll on his opponent.

So what are the comparative advantages of both cards? They clearly fill the same primary role - stressing Fel - but they also fulfill a secondary role. Push the Limit can be used to generate two Focus tokens on Fel (along with whatever else he does), it can be used to get Fel out of the line of fire (Boost and Barrel Roll FTW!), and can be used to push Fel closer (or farther) away from his opponent. Conversely, Elusiveness basically protects Fel from critical hits - if your opponent rolls a Critical result, you force the reroll, and since there is only 1 Critical result on each attack die, the odds of your opponent rolling it again are only 1 in 8.

It seems to me that Push the Limit will generally be a better ability if you expect Fel to come under significant fire during a turn, but if you only have one ship shooting at Fel, that Elusiveness will be superior.

In the current Meta, what does everyone think?

I think you answered your own question. Just don't get stress happy.
Basically, Elusiveness gives a 2:1 action per turn ratio with the addition of stress while PTL gives you a 3:2 with the addition of stress. This assumes you take a green maneuver following every usage of either skill.Elusiveness has a better ratio, with the added effect of forcing a reroll, but offers less action choice. PTL allows you to take the green maneuver, and then enhance your movement with the boost/barrel roll. If you haven't mastered movement with the interceptor, maybe try Elusiveness. If you have, stick with PTL

If you're going to put yourself in a stressful situation, be sure you can escape from it.

I'll start by saying that I'm not a tournament player, so take my comments with a grain of salt I guess. Personally I love Soontir+PTL+Stealth Device. Its by far my favorite combo. Its Highly effective and fun to play. With this combo you are rolling a minimum of 4 Evade Dice as long as you keep the stealth device. PTL lets you take an evade action every round and, since he is one of the last to fly, barrel roll/boost, out of the enemy arc. Then you get the free focus which I like to save for defense if it looks like Soontir will be attacked by more than one ship. All of this means that Soontir can avoid being in the enemy arc, get an automatic evade of 1 hit, and roll 4 evade dice with an option to focus when needed, all the while dishing out 3-4 attack dice every round. If you fly him right with this setup he is very hard to take down or even hit in my experience. Its all about keeping that stealth device as long as you can. One of my favorite squads is



100 points

Pilots
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Academy Pilot (12)

Academy Pilot (12)

Soontir Fel (33)
TIE Interceptor (27), Push the Limit (3), Stealth Device (3)

Krassis Trelix (43)
Firespray-31 (36), Heavy Laser Cannon (7)

Fly the Academy pilots right down the middle and use Soontir and Krassis as the pincers coming in from the sides. You deal out some major damage on the first wave of the attack. After that barrel roll, boost, and 2 speed turn as much as possible to keep him behind as many enemy ships as possible and remove the stress every round. Again i don't play in tournaments so maybe this is something that experienced gamers predict at this point but its been really good for the "friendly" games I've played.

I think you get more mileage out of Push the Limit across the board. It has a lot more flexibility (allowing movement actions as well as defensive ones) and can deal with multiple attacks better, since PtL can give him an Evade and two Focus tokens. I also find the inherent benefit of Elusiveness underwhelming - a once-per-turn ability that has a 50/50 chance of doing noting even in the best case. Worst case (your opponent has a Focus) Elusiveness will only have a 25% chance of avoiding damage. Sure it might drop a crit to a regular, but TIEs are fragile enough that's not necessarily a huge benefit.

So at least for me, it's Push the Limit, hands down.

Ill echo whats already been said and add thet you are assuming that the enemy ship still has Fel in its arc after he uses PTL, which in my experience is pretty rare. The extra barrel roll/boost usually means Fel just dodged being attacked at all (especially given he moves last and can see where everything is prior to doing so) and gives him a focus for his attack (potentially removing another target that had Fel in his arc).

I have seen both used to great effect. I played against a friend today and he had a Soontir with Elusiveness. I had a double falcon list. In this case Elusiveness was better since i had only 2 shots per turn at him maximum. Also PTL is of less use, as you can not boost or barrel roll out of the Falcons firing arc.

I still prefer PTL generally though because it gives you the stress token exactly when you want it and on Soontir, you get 3 actions per turn (well the last being the focus token you get) Focus/Focus/Evade is a very good combo too since you have a very good defense and still a focus to use offensively most of the time. Elusiveness is porely defensive and you only get your focus when you are shot at, meaning in the enemy turn. You will never get any offensive use of focus token like that.

I prefer push the limit over elusiveness, as it allows you to use both focus and evade on defense while still retaining a focus token to use for offense. As expensive as he is, Fel had better be dishing out the damagein addition to just being hard to kill.

Elusiveness has the advantage that it can activate without performing an action, but as long as you arent running into things I find PtL to be superior.