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Instead of going off on a tangent in the T-70 thread thought I would start a new one to ask, how are we all getting along with 2.0? Whats working, what isn't, whats broken and whats pathetic?

My impressions so far are over whelmingly positive, there are a few things that I thought have been handled poorly (app, misprints etc) but the game as a whole feels a lot more balanced and alot more intune with how early v1 did, like taking upgrades are a choice now rather than automatic must have, repositining matters as does flying well in the first place!

As a Scum player I have found that the Firespray has become a very viable ship (Boba, Han gunner, 000 and Marauder being my favourite).
The quadjumper is brokenly cheap for what you get.
Falcon is too cheap and is a very versatile ship its not a hard hitting powerhouse but the tricks it can pull are not to be discounted.
Fangs I am not sure off, I can see the point of both Teroch and Rau but they are so fragile (and expensive) that one mistake costs you the ship.
Kimoglia sucks, I really wanted to like it and have used both Dalan and the executioner but I have never felt like it was a better option than either a HWK or Falcon.
Syck doesnt do it for me other than a filler (Ion cannon).
HWK is in my opinon by far the most improved ship, the three named pilots are all good and the ship has such wonderful utility.
Lancer and JM5K are either overpriced or underpowered, or possibly both.
Viper rocks, once used to used and its funky barrel rolls this can be a real power but it still dies too easy.
YV-666 I really wanted to like, especially Eval but its still a brick.
Khiriaxz, G1-A, Y, Z and Aggressor I have not formed an opinion of.

Other than the Falcons and FS-31 I have been finding that the less upgrades the better and generally the more ships the better (four ships seems to be the sweet spot for me).

From what i have faced on the table it seems that the Imps feel the more threatining faction, Reapers, x1, Whisper, Strikers and the humble line fighter have all proved tricky to face whereas the interceptor, Decimator and TAP have proven easy targets so far.

So how about everyone else?

I'm loving 2nd edition so far. Having ships like HWKs and the Punisher being good is refreshing, as is actually seeing X-Wings do well on the tabletop. There are still some problems, for sure, but I think they're relatively minor. The positivity could be further enhanced if FFG handle the first balance changes well.

A lot of people are still in the experimental stage so we'll have to wait and see how things shake out once the powerful lists start popping up everywhere. My overall feeling is that flying matters much more than in 1st edition, which provides chances for most decent lists even against the more powerful ones, which certainly wasn't the case in 1st edition.

Heh. Han gunner for Boba Fett. He was more versatile in that carbonite than I thought

Not really impressed with 2.0 so far.

The app is a debacle, large-format upgrade cards and no points/upgrade bars on the cards makes list building and setting up a game a huge pain, and god help you if you forget something about your list and don't have your phone available to look it up.

The nerfs to action economy in favor of more unmodified dice is GW-style excessive randomness, favoring dice luck over skill. Yeah, it's good for making new players think they're winning and convincing them to keep spending money, but it's bad design for experienced players who want a game of skill. Too many games, both the ones I've played and the ones I've watched, are having key moments decided by who rolls better dice.

FFG's charge mechanic is irritating. More tokens, more pointless limits on how much you can use stuff, and for what benefit? Is R2-D2 really so good that it needs charges to be balanced? No. It really seems like a case of FFG falling in love with their own cleverness and over-using the shiny new thing.

Following from the previous points, there's no such thing as an endgame ship anymore. Everyone takes damage, everyone runs out of charges. Everyone has to submit to dice luck and damage card luck, and one bad turn can completely swing a game. You're on a ticking clock with every ship in your list, and that extra 1-2 damage adds up fast. Most of the game is now about winning the joust, aces are there to gain a 1-2 turn advantage in the jousting math and can't be relied on to win a game for you.

FFG's policy of "upgrades are bad, take few of them" is incredibly frustrating. Why make ships that have tons of upgrade options and then tell players not to use most of them? It's stupid as hell, if FFG wants to make the game about naked ships then just make it ships-only and remove the upgrade element entirely.

That said, things that I've seen working:

1) High-PS torpedo ships with good HP. Wedge, Redline, etc. Fully modified 4-dice attacks that can PS-kill a ship very easily, with enough HP to survive the joust long enough to apply damage. And remember how this is a jousting game where everyone takes damage? In a match between ships with 1-2 HP left the one that shoots first gets to win. Mid-PS ships are just dead, they're too expensive to out-joust the torpedo aces by sheer math efficiency but don't have the PS to compete.

2) The force. Remember how action economy is dead? Only if you don't have a force icon. It's expensive because it's really powerful. Even force crew upgrades with marginal abilities can be good, just because they give you that force point every turn and let you use your actions for repositioning or re-rolls. It's just one game so far, but Miranda with Kanan and Ezra seems to have some potential. Fully modified opening torpedo shot, and some nice utility options if you aren't burning your force points on modifying dice. Whisper with the force seems similarly good, even if Vader isn't stripping tokens or dealing damage it's still giving you the ability to never take a focus action.

3) Balance mistakes. Punishers are too cheap (lol, who ever thought we'd say that), space tugs are too cheap, bombers with barrage rockets are too cheap, etc. It's still an unbalanced game, find the things that FFG screwed up the point costs on and exploit them until the next point adjustment. There's no real strategy advantage on any of them, just getting to play a 200 point game with 250 points worth of stuff.

4) Action sharing. Coordinate is good. Dutch/Garvin/Essege are good. Break FFG's removal of action economy, and make sure the key ship has a good kill shot set up.

Things that aren't working:

1) TIE fighters. What do torpedo aces like? 3 HP ships in a game where you're rolling unmodified green dice as often as possible. You can't out-PS the aces, and often you just get PS killed as soon as a TIE becomes a threat. You're better off replacing two TIEs with a single higher-HP ship that can't get killed in one shot as easily.

2) Gunboats, sadly. I hate to admit it, but they just can't compete with the balance mistakes of bombers and punishers. You can't get action economy (at least without support ships), which means a bad torpedo roll can very easily cost you the game. Vynder has potential as a late-game threat once you can set up a target lock, keep it for FCS, and focus for the kill shot. But I wouldn't take more than one. A similar principle applies to other ships like the gunboat. If you struggle to modify your dice you'd better be dirt cheap and efficient at jousting if you want to be useful.

3) Opening-turn mistakes. Games end much faster in 2.0, and a bad initial engagement is game over. Whether it's bad dice or a botched initial position there's often no coming back once you have damage on your ships and your opponent doesn't, not without a significant skill advantage. You don't have defensive token stacking or regen to bail you out and buy you time to set up a better situation.

Game has totally flatlined locally, guess 2.0 hasn't grabbed players, I was only in for a Starter and Rebel Kit so not too stung but I think ebay may well be calling

I used to see games of x-wing all the time at the two shops I frequent. I have not yet seen anyone with x-wing models let alone playing the game. I personally will not be updating to second edition as I refuse to play a game that forces you to use a mobile app to build your list at all. Warmachine has similarly fallen away for much the same reason. This is only my experience, but as far as my area goes x-wing is dead.

Well so far my experiences are thus:

The game is longer and more drawn out. With no harps, no bevy of bombs going every which way, there's no longer massive damage cascades going on.

I'd disagree with Peregrine on that and a few things:

The lack of action economy has made thinking about maneuvers a lot more important. A key barrel roll, or boost for a better spot, even with unmodified dice can be rewarding if your opponent can't shoot you. Matter of fact in some games it's still better to let your opponent shoot first, so you can get the chance to reposition on his movements.

The charge mechanic is nice, it's a bit tacked on with things like crackshot (we get it, it's one use and done) but it's nice to give ordnance multiple shots. And keeps things like Leia, the astromechs, and certain things from breaking the game. (And yes R2-D2 needs to be limited, In 1.0 you could disengage and run around the board, and heal up every bit of damage. At least now there's a penalty to it and a limit of uses. )


Now as far as ships go, I'm limiting to what I've actually flown to make a comment on:

Scum:
Scum Y-Wings: Drea is a beautiful lady for generic swarms, Kavil is Kavil, and Thug Life (Guess it's Goon Life) is a alive and well. ICTs and VTGs are oh so nice.

Customized YT-1300: Oh god I thought I was going to hate a 2 die fat ship, but this thing has so many dirty tricks, Han+Trick Shot+Title+a Rigged Cargo Chute is FUN! The escape craft interaction also makes this thing a freaking nail on the board. L3-37 is also very good in all her uses.

Fang: Not happy with it. Across the board it's to pricey, to fragile, and the only success I've really had with it, is as a distraction carnifex.

Firespray: It's really good, it's not quite as good as the hype is. Kath blows compared to Drea, but Boba, Emon, and Krassis are all good and do different things well. Not sold on Ms. Frost yet.

G1-A: 4-Lom is good, I've been meaning to run him with brobots but on his own, the jam action, stress mechanics (which are really important in the game now.) are all good. Initiative/PS values are bleh though.

HWK-290: Most improved ship contender..yeah, but it's also a bit pricey. I'd only bother with the title on a few things. Mux and Dace are pretty good, though Mux is still my favorite out of the bunch.

Jumpmaster: With the title it's a fierce beast. Dengar is as Dengary as he's ever been. R3 astromech gets stapled to him and just DARE someone to shoot at you. Especially if you have protons and Manaroo passing him goodies. Speaking of, Manaroo is nice, usually stuck her right to whatever ship she's supporting but with crew like 0-0-0, she's a good blocker too. Haven't tried Tel yet.

Khiraxz: I hope more mods come out, cause as it is, it's just...okay? There's spice in Talon and Graz, but otherwise it's generics for me, and with no harps my boy Jostero has to rely on being bomber escort to a Havoc to have even a slightly good time anymore.

Lancer: Like the Jumpmaster, it's still a beast. I fly it with Han primarily and it's just wonderful. Assaj is just oh so nice. As is Ketsu. Need glitterstims to come back so the illicit slot has more to do other then carry more rigged cargo chutes, also I really need more rigged cargo chute tokens.

Kimogila: Unfortunately ingtaer is right to a degree and it hurts as this was my favorite ship from 1.0 bar none. VI Dalan with Harps was AWESOME!. Now it's just a tanky brawler, if it gets you in the bull's eye it's still death to any token stacker, but there isn't much token stacking to punish. Torani is still viable as 4 is in that 'kinda' good spot. I think if I had more than one a pair of generics with R3s and clusters could be formidable too, but alas I'm very disappointed here.

M3a: Serissu and then TPVs or nothing. Stealth devices if you got the points and then add a weapon of your favorite flavor. It's modular, but it's also tin foily if the dice betray you.

Quadjumper: Cheap, sucks in a firefight, lots of maneuverability options and one of the best baked in upgrades available (outside of one other ship). Buuuut.... no shields so it's easy to get turned into a bbq. Staple Ketsu's crew card to it and have fun, otherwise keep em' cheap.

Scurrg: If the HWK is the most improved Scum ship, the Scurrg is the most NERFED. No torps, no missiles, it's basically an expensive as hell Y-wing now with no gunner slot for VTG goodness. Nym and Sol are okay, but as a platform it's the worst Scum ship in the game to me.

YV-666: Second worse ship in the game. Bossk only works with primary guns. The ship doesn't maneuver well, and it's only good for hauling Jabba around. But it's so expensive good luck using him with enough other ships to make all that illicit goodness work. Nashtah Pup is still great though.

Z-95s: Scum's little workhorse, fly em' generic (B. Sun is actually nice with the talent slot), fly em' in swarms, fly em' with Drea for a good time. Or fly N'dru like you would in 1.0 But being a 4 stinks for him, he should have been a 5.


Imperials:

Alpha-Class: I only had one, so I only ever really flew Vynder anyway, and it's still a good ship, no harps hurts it a bit, but it's still really good in that it can fire while slamming. It can be really tempting to load these things down but protons or clusters are good choices. 'Maybe' Concussion missiles if you got high initiative ordinance users with you.


Advanced x1: I wish it was a smidge cheaper, but marksmanship+FCS and it's baked in upgrade is swwweeeet. It's a very good platform. Vader is pricey and needs support ships but otherwise Maarek is great, Ved is great, generic Stormies are good ships too. Along with the Defender it also looks so good to have Vader or Maarek flanked by helpers.

Tie Reaper: Not as good as it was in 1.0 but if the Lamb is a Ford pickup, the Reaper is a Ferrari. This thing is ultra maneuverable, jam and ISB slicer is fun. Vermeil and Feroph are brutal. Vizier still sucks. Generic is a fun blocker.

Tie Defender: Best ship in the game so far. Put Juke on it, and go win. It's almost broken in how good it is. Brath is amazing. Vessery and Ryad are good but a tiny bit expensive for their initiative. Generics need to be a tad cheaper but it's still nice. I'd like to see them take the deltas down 63 points since they don't have the talent slot, so I could run three with FCS. But oh well. Can't complain when this thing is so freaking good.

Tie Aggressor: Wish I had more then one, cause they can go do the same ion/vtg fun scum and rebel y-wings can do. Kestal even at 4 would be really good against aces if there was a way to get her an 'extra' focus. Time will tell I guess. Ship fits solidly in the 'good' but not great territory.

Punisher: Redline is the new hotness and it's great cause I liked flying Redline in 1.0. I thought the Punisher was unfairly dogged and now it's great to see this baby doing well. Clusters and protons are again first in my thoughts. And it's a good user of FCS or Trajectory Simulator (though TS is best on Deathrain of course.)

Tie Interceptor: It's criminal in how little the conversion packs gave us cause I like running the ps1s as blockers and swarms wrapped around Howlrunner. Fel is slightly nerfed but good flyers are still going give their opponents headaches. Sabers and Turr are also good ships, if only we had a VI talent... alas....alas.

Tie Fighter: Inferno squad is nice, but Howlrunner and A. Pilot or Crack Blacks are still the gold standard. Swarms not having to fear splashy damage makes fielding a bunch of these really good, or as a pair of blockers. Not game winners on their own but no complaints for their cost.

Tie Phantom: Another juke platform, Whisper, Echo and Sigma generics are sweet. Crew slot opens them up for force users as well. Or Krennic as the ability to target lock shouldn't be discredited.

Tie Bomber: Take Jonus if you're taking torps or missiles. Just do it. He's Howlrunner for secondary weapons. And the bombing game while nerfed is pretty good with these guys. Bren and Rhymer are as good as they ever were. Barrage rockets and seismic charges are lovely loadouts.

Tie Striker: Good ship, not sure what to do with it. It's like a light bomber now, but it's still a great close in knife fighter. So...it's kinda like an unshielded B-wing (I'm aware B-wing doesn't have bombs) in a lot of ways in terms of dogfighting potential. Countdown is very tough though.

Rebels:
B-Wings: If they were 5s or 6s good god they'd be sick as hell. Guess that's why Ten and Braylen are 4s. Still, it's an easy ship to get stress onto to get their abilities clicking and they're pretty tough too. Haven't tried the generics yet.

Auzituck: Nothings changed. Low is still a great meat shield, so everyone will pass up Wolfie which is a shame cause he's great too. Should make a note of Magva Yarro's crew card. Any low initiative ship that can take crew needs her on it. And the Auzi does wonders with her and Lando.

Y-wing: *sings* Everything is awesome!............... Okay so seriously no flaws with the pilots, they all do nice things, ICT, VTGs, R4 and done. Norra plus afterburners is surprisingly fun.

K-Wing: It's still Miranda or a pair of generics, I want to like Esege, but bad initiative, and over priced. If you could transfer or let ships nearby use abilities or weapons that needed a focus USING his focus tokens, I'd take him and perceptive copilot and call it a day. Still barrage rockets are nice on them, and they can still bomb and slam away all day. If they could discard the disarm token somehow or hard an effect like the Alpha class they'd be broken.

E-Wing: It wants to be a Tie Defender and can 'almost' do it. But it's not got the shields or hull to pull it off. Even Corran is just too expensive for what you're getting. I really want to like this ship as an alpha striker with proton torps and all it's just so...oh well.

A-Wing: Initiatives suck, but Arvel with Intim and proton rockets is sick if it connects. plus like the Tie Interceptor it's fast enough to be a blocker. And again with Intim it's helping out the rest of the squad.

X-Wing: FFG set out to improve it and they did. It's the mainline fighter for a reason again. Conversion kit screwed up not giving enough bases, and dials but that's no fault of the 'ship'. It's got great pilots in the 6-4 band. And if you can keep track of your s-foils it's pretty nimble. And Biggs is still there to die for your sins if you need him.

U-Wing: I love this ship. Rebels have so many great crew options and almost all of them nestle in this ship nicely. Leia (seriously white stop with free 180 or 90 degree turn is SWEET), Magva, etc. all great. Benthic and Perceptive Copilot is wonderful, Heff and Zeb still good (though no anti-pursuit lasers and ion projector sucks), Saw's great in the late game, Bodhi's great in the early game. I'd rather have Magva as crew as I can't stress enough. Low Initiative ship that has a crew slot? Put her on it. But as a support pilot she still ain't bad.


Right now my favorite ships are:

Scum:
YT-1300
Jumpmaster
Lancer
Y-wing

Imperial:
Tie Defender
Tie Phantom
Tie Reaper
Advanced X1

Rebels:
U-Wing
Y-Wing
B-Wing
X-Wing

Flinty wrote:Heh. Han gunner for Boba Fett. He was more versatile in that carbonite than I thought

Its amazing how much good work is done by popsical Han, cant wait for the Alt Art.

Peregrine wrote:

Snipping that to avoid a huge quote tree. Its really surprising how different our experiences have lined up, other than your points about the too cheap ships and the app debacle I have found the opposite. Some of that is presonal preference (I like the fact that most upgrades arn't must takes and that naked ships can be viable, but I also put lots of upgrades my 'Sprays and Falcon) but others must be local meta as I have seen multiple TIE swarms do really well (like the all PS4 swarm) and many late game aces. They may not be the levels of silly that v1 got to with Miranda but the Boba build I have been using is a really pain to take down 1v1 (more so when using CD), Vader and Whisper seem to do the Job well for Imps and the new fat Han reb is annoying.

Brotherjanus wrote:I used to see games of x-wing all the time at the two shops I frequent. I have not yet seen anyone with x-wing models let alone playing the game. I personally will not be updating to second edition as I refuse to play a game that forces you to use a mobile app to build your list at all. Warmachine has similarly fallen away for much the same reason. This is only my experience, but as far as my area goes x-wing is dead.

That's a shame, FFG really shot themselves in the foot with the rollout of V2, but saying that I haven't used the app once so far and have not felt the loss. For occasions when I cant use one of the squadron builders I just wrote the cost of the cards on some paper and put it in the sleeve.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 KingmanHighborn wrote:

Jumpmaster: With the title it's a fierce beast. Dengar is as Dengary as he's ever been. R3 astromech gets stapled to him and just DARE someone to shoot at you. Especially if you have protons and Manaroo passing him goodies. Speaking of, Manaroo is nice, usually stuck her right to whatever ship she's supporting but with crew like 0-0-0, she's a good blocker too. Haven't tried Tel yet.

Lancer: Like the Jumpmaster, it's still a beast. I fly it with Han primarily and it's just wonderful. Assaj is just oh so nice. As is Ketsu. Need glitterstims to come back so the illict slot has more to do other then carry more rigged cargo chutes, also I really need more rigged cargo chute tokens.

Interesting. I have had little joy with either of these, what do you fly with them?

Lancer List:

Han Solo — Customized YT-1300 54
Trick Shot 1
Proton Rockets 7
0-0-0 3
L3-37 4
BT-1 2
Rigged Cargo Chute 4
Hull Upgrade 3
Lando’s Millennium Falcon 6
Ship Total: 84

Asajj Ventress — Lancer-Class Pursuit Craft 84
Heightened Perception 3
Latts Razzi 7
Rigged Cargo Chute 4
Shadow Caster 6
Ship Total: 104

Autopilot Drone — Escape Craft 12
Ship Total: 12

Total: 200/200

Jumpmaster lists:
https://raithos.github.io/?f=Scum%20and%20Villainy&d=v5!s!115:125,-1,136,-1,-1,159:U.4;117:133,54,-1,96,-1,-1:;140:133,-1,42,71,-1,-1:&sn=QuadDoubleJump&obs=

https://raithos.github.io/?f=Scum%20and%20Villainy&d=v5!s!115:125,-1,136,-1,-1,159:U.4;117:133,63,-1,96,-1,-1:;110:133,113,-1,-1,-1,-1:&sn=Jumping%20G&obs=

Basically the hard part is deciding what that third ship is going to be.

 KingmanHighborn wrote:
The lack of action economy has made thinking about maneuvers a lot more important. A key barrel roll, or boost for a better spot, even with unmodified dice can be rewarding if your opponent can't shoot you. Matter of fact in some games it's still better to let your opponent shoot first, so you can get the chance to reposition on his movements.

The problem is that the price of a repositioning action is now highly variable because it involves more unmodified dice. A barrel roll at the expense of a focus could result in you dodging the arc but inflicting no damage, or it could cost you nothing because you don't roll any {eye} results. The outcome of the encounter is determined less by player choice and more by how well each side's dice rolled.

And no, it isn't sometimes better to let your opponent shoot first so you can reposition based on their movements. It's always better to do that, and this has been known since the earliest days of the game when everyone was taking 100 point lists (even if it meant taking useless upgrades just to eat points) to make sure they didn't have a lower point total than their opponent and get forced to move first. Nothing in 2.0 changes this.

(And yes R2-D2 needs to be limited, In 1.0 you could disengage and run around the board, and heal up every bit of damage. At least now there's a penalty to it and a limit of uses. )

R2-D2 was just fine, and only low-skill players had a problem with it. Yes, you could regen all day, but being limited to green maneuvers made you very predictable and the primary user of R2-D2 had to choose between having very low PS or having limited action economy with VI instead of PTL. Very often you'd get locked into green maneuvers, have zero chance of ever getting to shoot again, and eventually die once your green dice failed you and R2-D2 couldn't keep up. The primary "issue" with regen was bad players thinking that just because they removed a shield token they must be closer to winning, when they're really using bad strategies like splitting their fire and failing to finish off damaged ships. These players would get outraged that their "damage" didn't count, despite the fact that they were going to lose anyway. Meanwhile ships like Soontir Fel didn't draw the same hate because you never got to put "damage" on them, even though their total HP at the end of the game would be the same 100% and they'd have the same endgame durability.

HWK-290: Most improved ship contender..

Disagree. HWK is massively nerfed from 1.0. Its offense is crippled and the pilot abilities now require you to have a target in arc. Even the title is limited to only a pair of focus tokens banked. It might be playable in 2.0 because so much other stuff has also been nerfed, but I sure wouldn't call it improved.

M3a: Serissu and then TPVs or nothing.

Disagree. The Scyk has one of the few double-modified torpedo options in the pilot who gets bonus tokens on a target lock. Pick a lower-PS threat, and either they refuse to take focus tokens and die or they hand you a TL + focus stack for your torpedo shot.

Scurrg: If the HWK is the most improved Scum ship, the Scurrg is the most NERFED. No torps, no missiles, it's basically an expensive as hell Y-wing now with no gunner slot for VTG goodness. Nym and Sol are okay, but as a platform it's the worst Scum ship in the game to me.

Nope. You know what's great in a dice game? Bombs that don't require rolling dice. Trajectory simulator is still good, and arguably even better than in 1.0 now that you have seismic charges with an obscenely huge threat range. Anything with trajectory simulator deserves serious consideration just because of how powerful that combo is.

Tie Bomber: Take Jonus if you're taking torps or missiles. Just do it. He's Howlrunner for secondary weapons.

Disagree. Now that ordnance doesn't make you spend your target lock (IOW, you already have re-rolls) Jonus is good for one thing and one thing only: barrage rocket spam. Fortunately barrage rocket bomber spam is overpowered, so it's a good single use.

B-Wings: If they were 5s or 6s good god they'd be sick as hell. Guess that's why Ten and Braylen are 4s. Still, it's an easy ship to get stress onto to get their abilities clicking and they're pretty tough too. Haven't tried the generics yet.

Nope. B-wings are trash. X-wings do what they can do and do it better.

I want to like Esege, but bad initiative, and over priced.

Fly with Garven. Enjoy infinite focus. Probably not top-tier, but it's fun at least.

Arvel with Intim and proton rockets is sick if it connects

Alas, like many of FFG's nerf victims, Arvel's ability only works on primary weapon attacks. No prockets for you.

 Peregrine wrote:

 KingmanHighborn wrote:
The lack of action economy has made thinking about maneuvers a lot more important. A key barrel roll, or boost for a better spot, even with unmodified dice can be rewarding if your opponent can't shoot you. Matter of fact in some games it's still better to let your opponent shoot first, so you can get the chance to reposition on his movements.

The problem is that the price of a repositioning action is now highly variable because it involves more unmodified dice. A barrel roll at the expense of a focus could result in you dodging the arc but inflicting no damage, or it could cost you nothing because you don't roll any {eye} results. The outcome of the encounter is determined less by player choice and more by how well each side's dice rolled.

And no, it isn't sometimes better to let your opponent shoot first so you can reposition based on their movements. It's always better to do that, and this has been known since the earliest days of the game when everyone was taking 100 point lists (even if it meant taking useless upgrades just to eat points) to make sure they didn't have a lower point total than their opponent and get forced to move first. Nothing in 2.0 changes this.

Except when it isn't because your ships have abilities that activate when you engage and so shooting second means they don't get to, or when you don't rely on arc dodging, or when you can nuke a ship in one hit...

(And yes R2-D2 needs to be limited, In 1.0 you could disengage and run around the board, and heal up every bit of damage. At least now there's a penalty to it and a limit of uses. )

R2-D2 was just fine, and only low-skill players had a problem with it. Yes, you could regen all day, but being limited to green maneuvers made you very predictable and the primary user of R2-D2 had to choose between having very low PS or having limited action economy with VI instead of PTL. Very often you'd get locked into green maneuvers, have zero chance of ever getting to shoot again, and eventually die once your green dice failed you and R2-D2 couldn't keep up. The primary "issue" with regen was bad players thinking that just because they removed a shield token they must be closer to winning, when they're really using bad strategies like splitting their fire and failing to finish off damaged ships. These players would get outraged that their "damage" didn't count, despite the fact that they were going to lose anyway. Meanwhile ships like Soontir Fel didn't draw the same hate because you never got to put "damage" on them, even though their total HP at the end of the game would be the same 100% and they'd have the same endgame durability.

The primary issue with regen ships is when they get to regen and also have full mods or no real consequence, R2 I have never heard of as much of an issue but Miranda most certainly was.

HWK-290: Most improved ship contender..

Disagree. HWK is massively nerfed from 1.0. Its offense is crippled and the pilot abilities now require you to have a target in arc. Even the title is limited to only a pair of focus tokens banked. It might be playable in 2.0 because so much other stuff has also been nerfed, but I sure wouldn't call it improved.

Disagree, its offense is massively better as it now gets a three dice primary as well as an improved turret and if you cant keep your opponent in 180 degrees of arc (90 of which is moveable) then you really need to learn how to fly. For the Scum pilots being able to steal tokens is a massive deal with how much more valuable tokens are in v2 or taking an enemy down to int 0 can swing the game, as well as being able to jam.

M3a: Serissu and then TPVs or nothing.

Disagree. The Scyk has one of the few double-modified torpedo options in the pilot who gets bonus tokens on a target lock. Pick a lower-PS threat, and either they refuse to take focus tokens and die or they hand you a TL + focus stack for your torpedo shot.

Disagree its an Int 4 ship that costs a fifth of your list and pops as soon as you look at it funny, the ability also doesn't come into play if your opponent is higher Int or doesn't take a green token.

Scurrg: If the HWK is the most improved Scum ship, the Scurrg is the most NERFED. No torps, no missiles, it's basically an expensive as hell Y-wing now with no gunner slot for VTG goodness. Nym and Sol are okay, but as a platform it's the worst Scum ship in the game to me.

Nope. You know what's great in a dice game? Bombs that don't require rolling dice. Trajectory simulator is still good, and arguably even better than in 1.0 now that you have seismic charges with an obscenely huge threat range. Anything with trajectory simulator deserves serious consideration just because of how powerful that combo is.

Yep if your opponent is a cretin that flies right next to obstacles all the time and has no repositioning ability to get out of range 1 of them.

Seems like a lot of your problems with the game are that you cant shift your thinking out of V1.

The biggest issue with the App is that it requires a live internet connection to function, because for some reason they didn't think to have the card data be downloaded to the device...

Hopefully they'll fix that, because thats dumb.

Anyway, I've been liking my quad gunboat list.

I agree that the online only is right now the app's biggest problem. Bugs have ironed out a bit so that's good.

It's graphically the prettiest squad builder out there, so it's got that going for it.

 ingtaer wrote:
Except when it isn't because your ships have abilities that activate when you engage and so shooting second means they don't get to, or when you don't rely on arc dodging, or when you can nuke a ship in one hit...

Ships with abilities that trigger on engaging are an edge case, much like Whisper in 1.0. Yes, they exist, but the general rule is still true. And even in those cases repositioning second is so powerful that it's not even certain that you want to move first with those ships. And every ship benefits from arc dodging, even the few with no repositioning actions still get to hide their maneuver and prevent repositioning actions from being used against them.

Also, you know about the simultaneous fire rule, right? Nuking a ship in one hit doesn't matter because it's still going to fire back, outside of edge-case scenarios involving fluke crits.

The primary issue with regen ships is when they get to regen and also have full mods or no real consequence, R2 I have never heard of as much of an issue but Miranda most certainly was.

Well ok, but that's Miranda. I'd dispute the claim that Miranda was overpowered (and she's certainly over-nerfed in 2.0), but in either case mentioning Miranda is hardly a compelling argument in a debate over whether R2-D2 was overpowered.

Disagree, its offense is massively better as it now gets a three dice primary as well as an improved turret and if you cant keep your opponent in 180 degrees of arc (90 of which is moveable) then you really need to learn how to fly. For the Scum pilots being able to steal tokens is a massive deal with how much more valuable tokens are in v2 or taking an enemy down to int 0 can swing the game, as well as being able to jam.

A 3-die primary and a 2-die secondary arc is worse than a TLT, which a HWK had in every single 2.0 game unless you were playing down to a newbie's level in a teaching game. And yes, 180* of arc is a lot, but it's still a nerf from 360* of arc. Whether or not these are crippling nerfs they're indisputably nerfs.

Disagree its an Int 4 ship that costs a fifth of your list and pops as soon as you look at it funny, the ability also doesn't come into play if your opponent is higher Int or doesn't take a green token.

Are you seriously proposing "don't take green tokens" as a response? That alone is worth points as action denial, and you still get to fire the torpedo even if you don't have focus + TL stacked. Yeah, it's more fragile than other options, but that's why you pay so few points for a potential double-modified shot.

Yep if your opponent is a cretin that flies right next to obstacles all the time and has no repositioning ability to get out of range 1 of them.

I don't think you quite realize how huge an area a seismic charge can cover. Remember, you don't commit to an obstacle until it detonates, if your bomb is at range 1 of multiple obstacles that's a huge no-fly zone. It's pretty easy to set up situations where your opponent either has to eat the bomb damage or make terrible maneuver/reposition choices that leave them vulnerable to your conventional attacks.Add in Nym's ability to hold a bomb, keeping the area denial threat active, and that's a lot of power.


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 KingmanHighborn wrote:
It's graphically the prettiest squad builder out there, so it's got that going for it.

Honestly, who cares if it looks pretty? It's a squad builder, not a game. You use it for a few minutes and then you ignore it for the rest of the game. The fact that it wastes space on looking pretty instead of better information density like the third-party options is a huge reason not to use it.

If you're going to talk about TLT then well yeah, it went on everything that could take a turret except for some fringe ion builds. That's the card not the ship platform. Bare bones to bare bones the HWK 290 is massively improved from the 1.0 version.

Also I like that the app doesn't hurt my eyes when reading like Launch Bay. And YASB is hard as hell to access from my phone. If the official app worked offline there would be very little complaint. That's really all they got to fix. The fact that it's accessible across, my phone, tablet and laptop is nice too. I don't have to make the same list three times over.

 KingmanHighborn wrote:
I agree that the online only is right now the app's biggest problem. Bugs have ironed out a bit so that's good.

It's graphically the prettiest squad builder out there, so it's got that going for it.

I tend to agree; Since the app was to be the heart of the game, I would made sure that part of the game was 100% before releasing the game. After removing the points values allowing you to make
a force, then forcing players to use a program that isn't the best it could be, I see as a missed step.

Locally I saw a slow down in play moving to 2nd edition.. nothing like what warmachine had but a noticeable difference. Also a number of players dumped their side armies to stream line down to a single force.

 Peregrine wrote:
Not really impressed with 2.0 so far.

The app is a debacle, large-format upgrade cards and no points/upgrade bars on the cards makes list building and setting up a game a huge pain, and god help you if you forget something about your list and don't have your phone available to look it up.

First thing I noticed before even playing a game. Oh, and having two buy two of each upgrade box to field each of my forces.

Unless you are specifically running a Z95 or TIE/ln swarm, I have seen no need at all for a second box. Maybe for the odd A-Wings list, but that's about it. Everything else has been pretty much the purview of a single box, and there is quite enough to have fun/be competitive with a single conversion pack.

Sure, the corner case list might require that... but in my area, there has been a vigorous market for unused sets of upgrades that not a lot of people have been left wanting.