The TIE Defender is one of the ugliest things I have ever seen. It makes my brain hurt. I think the Phantom looks beautiful. Z-95 is ok and the E-Wing looks terrible.
It will be interesting to see how these ships change the meta.
That's all incredibly subjective, though. I think the Defender is ugly, but a lot of people love it. You dislike the E-Wing, but myself and a lot of other people are big fans of the design ever since it showed up in Dark Empire.
the Defender looks like a mutant Interceptor and the E-wing is quite boring, i'll probably only pick up a single phantom .
IMO:
Tie Defenders stats & upgrade bar were a little disappointment. After all, TIE defender was perhaps the most technologically advanced starfighter in the galaxy after the battle of Endor. Technologically advanced and no system upgrade? Gee.. even B-wing has one. In PC-game Tie Fighter Defender was very well shielded, so 3 shield tokens dont feel that good. It has 3 agility to make those shields last longer, but I would have loved to see 4 shields in Defenders stats. But maybe it's a balance issue. If it had shield value of 4 in basic stats shield upgrade modification would make it to 5 - maybe too much. Lets hope the dial is good. Btw in news it only says: "and a maneuver never before seen on a dial.", so it isnt necessarily a new one, it could be only speed 1 K-turn, but we shall see. I hope its a new one.
Tie Phantom is the one I like least. I would have much rather seen Assault gunboat or DX-9 stormtrooper transport in its place. Primary weapon attack value of 4 doesnt feel right either. How can it have more firepower than X-wing, Tie Interceptor and Tie Defender which are all equipped with four laser canons? Attack value of 3 should have been enough.
Z95:s is probably the one I like most and feelings towards E-wing are pretty neutral. Mara Jade would be nice to have pilot in Z95, eventhough: "How pathetic , they must really want to die flying those Z-95 Headhunters" (citation from Tie Fighter Pc game)-
Tie Phantom is the one I like least. I would have much rather seen Assault gunboat or DX-9 stormtrooper transport in its place. Primary weapon attack value of 4 doesnt feel right either. How can it have more firepower than X-wing, Tie Interceptor and Tie Defender which are all equipped with four laser canons? Attack value of 3 should have been enough.
TIE Phantoms are equipped with 5 lasers canons. 3 on the wings and 2 on fuselage.
Three shields is fairly high, only one small base ship beats it and only one matches it, both ships known for being able to shrug off some nasty hits. A system upgrade might have been nice but in my mind those don't automatically go on advanced ships so much as they go on ones where you can fiddle with the electronics. Cannons and missiles make it fairly nasty as well.
Don't know much about the phantom but Attack dice aren't just number of guns, otherwise the B wing with its three in the pod one on each wing and one on the cockpit would have an even higher total. It's also accuracy and power per shot all rolled into one simplified package. It also helps emphasize the ships apparent role of dealing massive damage but being insanely fragile, 2/2/2 is the worst durability under fire we've seen yet.
I think the Phantom will be well balanced out via both the 2/2/2 stats and I think that cloaking will mean you cannot shoot and you will need an action to cloak and de-cloak, meaning you will need great position and then fire without modifier action support.
The Tie Defender is a menacing ship. 3/3/3/3 is without a doubt the best small ship set up in the game so far. Killing it will be a real pain even at it's base set up.
The E-Wing is going to be interesting as it screams out for a Hull Upgrade and PtL to really get max effect from the ship and that will make it expensive, otherwise I think the trusty X-Wing does the job just as well.
The Z-95 I haven't formed an opinion on. Of all the ships in wave 4, this one will rely most on the cards you can apply to it and the ships you fly with it. The only conclusion I have drawn is it will not make a good swarm ship at 2/2/2/2 with at best an X-Wing like dial.
IMO:
Tie Defenders stats & upgrade bar were a little disappointment. After all, TIE defender was perhaps the most technologically advanced starfighter in the galaxy after the battle of Endor. Technologically advanced and no system upgrade? Gee.. even B-wing has one. In PC-game Tie Fighter Defender was very well shielded, so 3 shield tokens dont feel that good. It has 3 agility to make those shields last longer, but I would have loved to see 4 shields in Defenders stats. But maybe it's a balance issue. If it had shield value of 4 in basic stats shield upgrade modification would make it to 5 - maybe too much. Lets hope the dial is good. Btw in news it only says: "and a maneuver never before seen on a dial.", so it isnt necessarily a new one, it could be only speed 1 K-turn, but we shall see. I hope its a new one.
Tie Phantom is the one I like least. I would have much rather seen Assault gunboat or DX-9 stormtrooper transport in its place. Primary weapon attack value of 4 doesnt feel right either. How can it have more firepower than X-wing, Tie Interceptor and Tie Defender which are all equipped with four laser canons? Attack value of 3 should have been enough.
Z95:s is probably the one I like most and feelings towards E-wing are pretty neutral. Mara Jade would be nice to have pilot in Z95, eventhough: "How pathetic , they must really want to die flying those Z-95 Headhunters" (citation from Tie Fighter Pc game)-
I think the Defender will be better than a lot of people think. The main reason being 3 defense dice and presumably an awesome dial. The B-wing may have more total health and the system upgrade, but it only has 1 defense. So its fairly easy to gang up on it and bring it down in a single round. And since it can't fly that well, it is easy to focus fire on. Now you can make the B-wing more maneuverable by adding adv sensors and an engine upgrade, but that takes your base 22 point ship to 29, only one short of the defender's base of 30. The b-wing is now more mobile, but it will cost your action every turn to get that mobility, and it still only has the 1 defense die. The defender has the stats of an x-wing with a shield upgrade and R2-F2 (28 pts and which would again cost your action every round), and probably the dial of an interceptor. If they had put any more upgrade slots or more shields it would have either been overpowered or cost way too much to be viable in most squads. I think its about dead on for what it does and what we need for the empire (although i wish it had a boost, but again, would cost more points and engine upgrade will do the job when needed)
Actually after talking about this I'm kind of excited for the Defender. I was only gonna get one, but I may have just talked myself into 2.