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https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2016/8/5/ill-show-you-the-dark-side/

I DON"T EVEN KNOW WHATS GOING ON.

This is fake, right?

Seriously, tell me it's fake.

Shut the front door! Take my money! Now, right now, on the table, no time for lube!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The end of thew article mentions 6 different Speed 1 maneuvers for the quadjumper. Could it be the banks, turns and a Segnor's Loop at speed 1?

 krodarklorr wrote:
I DON"T EVEN KNOW WHATS GOING ON.

This is fake, right?

Seriously, tell me it's fake.

Gencon is going on and FFG appear to be using the thinking impairment that 4 days on Con-food and Redbull causes to slip out some barrel scraping bobbins...

That shuttle tho... 4 attack dice and 12 hit points? Senior Palpatine, your new carriage awaits.

What the razzmatazz, FFG? Do you want me to be poor?

It looks like I can get a rebel Tie squadron of 4 if I buy 2 of these and split the pilot cards between my Imperial Tie fighters.

I can't wait to run a Cloaking Tie Fighter for my Rebels to support my Arc-170! Will it be good? Idfc, I can represent an underground Rebellion with my list without using Imperial Cards!

I want to know what the "Captured ____" card is and what the little token is for..... and the existence of a new source for Veteran Instincts is solid.

I think the token represents a Debuff, like Ren's.

One of the TIE Pilots (the PS 7 one) is Ahsoka.

Yeah, and there is also Captain Rex Pilot and Crew

Anyone else notice that the shuttle has the "Coordinate" action from epic ships?

Whaaaat!?

When did...but- *Sigh* just take my money FFG. All of it.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:

The end of thew article mentions 6 different Speed 1 maneuvers for the quadjumper. Could it be the banks, turns and a Segnor's Loop at speed 1?

Quadjumper one of the back cards you see Reve on it so possibly rules for Reverse maneuvers.

It will either have:
-Bank 1, Straight 1. Hard 1s, and Reverse 1 banks
-Hard 1, Straight 1, Reverse 1, Reverse Hard 1
(If not Hard, then Bank)


Kylo Ren just made it so that Determination just got a bit better too, which is convenient because I just started using it as a plug-in EPT to add ~30% anti-crit protection to my ace.

Hmm, Kylo Ren seems to be lacking a little in the Pilot Skill department. Strange to see another Rebel ship with only unique pilots. I guess this will be another wave that I only care about the upgrades.

Kylo doesn't strike me as a pilot. He definitely wasn't flying anything in the movie.

As for the no unique pilots for Arc and Tie-Fighter, it makes sense since they are either discontinued and salvaged or stolen. It represents their limited availability. I'll probably run 1 Arc 170 with 4 Tie fighters in tow.

First impressions:

Wave 10 general: honestly, I can't say I'm really excited about this. Wave 9 was mediocre enough as it is, and now three more underwhelming ships? And with yet another case of complexity creep where we get a whole new mechanic (the condition cards) which won't be applied to older ships even if they should have it. If waves 8-9 suggested that FFG is losing it this wave should pretty well confirm those worries.

Rebel TIE: garbage. Maybe it's a cool thing fluff-wise if that's your goal in playing, but from a competitive point of view TIE fighters are good for one thing: mass swarms. The rebel TIE doesn't get black squadron or academy pilots, and doesn't get Howlrunner. And if you try to treat a TIE fighter as anything other than a swarm ship (with optional crack shot) you just lose. There's a reason the only imperial TIE fighter that sees any meaningful play, outside of the occasional Wampa/Palpatine gimmick, is the one that buffs the swarm. Unless rebels get a Howlrunner equivalent I don't see any of these getting used.

Sabine Wren: a great pilot ability wasted on a TIE fighter. A free action every turn is great, doing it before your maneuver so you can avoid bumping is even better. But in the end it's still just a TIE fighter with its fragile hull and weak gun. Maybe she might see some use with crack shot as a "black squadron pilot" that gets a whole lot of additional power for +1 point, but that's about it.

Sabine's Masterpiece: really, really questionable. Normally +1 point for crew and illicit would be a good deal, but how many points do you really want to invest in a ship whose primary virtue is being extremely cheap? It does allow rebels access to the insanely broken slicer tools upgrade, if FFG is stupid enough to let it stay as-is, but I suspect the presence of it in every u-boat list is going to so thoroughly remove PTL aces from the metagame that this won't really matter much.

EMP thing: seems to be some form of "skip attacking to put ion tokens on nearby ships", as a one-shot card. Could be ok maybe, depending on range and cost? On the TIE it's probably just a good way of saying "shoot me ASAP", but maybe scum will find a use for it?

Captured/Surprised?: seems to be the condition gimmick for this ship. Some form of "until you attack enemy ships get a penalty", it looks like. I guess, if it's really effective, this could make up for the weaknesses of a single TIE fighter "ace", but I'm remaining skeptical until I see more.

Super Shuttle: underwhelming now, maybe good later? The raw stat line is pretty nice, especially that four-dice gun, but it's almost certainly going to have the normal shuttle's crippling dial problems and be really vulnerable to getting one good pass before it's out of the fight forever. It looks like you're paying 8-9 points more for a PS 2 generic to get +1 attack die on a shot or two, and +2 HP. Given that 99% of shuttles now are just Palpatine carriers I'm pretty skeptical of that trade, especially since it makes it impossible to take the usual two aces with Palpatine. The new upgrades, especially those tech slot ones, are going to have to be pretty good to make this work.

"I'll show you the dark side": Ugh. What a waste of a mechanic. You have to get through shields and inflict an uncancelled crit without killing the target, and you can't even make it a direct hit? And once you get that single crit the condition goes away and you have to set it up again? And it's unique, so you can't even throw it on everyone and hope that eventually you'll get lucky? Just no.

Fanatical Devotion/General Hux: Hux as a crew upgrade assigns some kind of "I'm bodyguarding you" condition. We can't see enough to make any conclusions beyond that, but it could be an interesting alternative to Palpatine everywhere.

Kylo Ren (pilot): garbage. The condition is bad, wasting a pilot ability on assigning it is bad. On the other hand, he does at least have an EPT, so if there's some powerful EPT option on the shuttle it's possible the others might not have a slot for it and you're stuck with Kylo Ren.

Kylo Ren (crew): garbage. Waste 3 points and a crew slot on a bad effect? No thanks.

Kylo Ren's Shuttle: an automatic stress token every turn to a ship within range 1-2 is good. Your opponent gets to choose who gets it, but for only 2 points and no upgrade slot this seems like a pretty good deal if you're already taking the shuttle. It's not worth it if you aren't, of course.

Quadjumper: not enough information to say. This is going to be a ship that lives and dies by its upgrades. The base stat line is garbage, but it seems to have some automatic tractor beam token effects. That could be enough to overcome the stat line issues, but we'll have to wait to know for sure.

Unkar Plutt (pilot): end of activation phase, mandatory tractor beam token for each ship you're touching. Seems like a strong blocking option, especially for a mere 17 points (plus upgrades). The downside is he's very fragile, so it may be kind of a one-shot ability. And right now the dominant scum lists are using a lot of large-base ships that don't leave room for a ~20 point support ship, so it may be a case of a good ship that just doesn't have a list.

Unkar Plutt (crew): garbage. Remember how nobody uses Chopper crew as rebels? Same here. A crew slot and damaging yourself is just too high a price to pay for this effect, even if it only costs a single point.

A Score to Settle: spend your EPT slot, get this ship's condition gimmick. At the beginning of the game you give the "a debt to pay" condition to an enemy ship, and turn an eye to a crit when attacking that ship (plus whatever the condition itself does). It seems ok on paper, but it's only against one ship and giving up your EPT is a high price to pay. On the other hand, it's a zero-point EPT, so anyone who can't afford any of the better EPTs is going to take it just because they can. The real question is what the condition does and if/how it can be removed. If it's easy to pay your debts and cancel the condition this is going to be a garbage option.

Tractor thing: seems to be some kind of automatic "assign a tractor token" effect. This is obviously a powerful starting point, but the cost and exact details of the rules are needed to say more than that.

The Upsilon having Coordinate as an action might help aces pick up the slack when the slicer tools really kick in and reduce the utility of PTL.

Slicer Tools remove stress = damage thing:

Maybe they have noticed that everyone is stuck in the Three Ship and/or Push the Limit hole and they are trying to push away from only taking PtL? Jumpmasters, despite having their own stress to target, are hurt less by simply being bigger and ?able to take it too?

The meta will turn into Jumpmasters and.... probably still aces, but maybe with reliance on 1-2 action aces that come with boost/barel roll. Sabine is PS 5 and has her built in advanced sensors, maybe she is a herald of the new standard for aces with each tier of pilot falling into place?

Sabine like stuff (Midrange) > Low PS (aggro) > Ace (combo.control) > Sabine like stuff (Mid-Range)

becomes the Rock, Paper, Scissors?

Captain Yorr and his Debris Clouds gets even better though! (Which is why Seismic Torpedoes exist to help with that in part)


Honestly, I don't think I like the existence of Push the Limit anymore and I suspect that FFG is starting to regret its existence too. It has brainwashed so many people, but because it exists it is going to be leaned on. PTL has made people rely on that more than the ability to accomplish their ace-flying another way, it has made the middle range of Pilot Skill pointless because either you swarm/spam or you are PTL aces, and it has helped kill a lot of ships. I could be wrong, but this is what my gut is feeling.

Without PTL pilots like Jake become stronger and it forces decisions like: "Do I choose action economy at a lower pilot skill, do I take 1 action per turn with the higher Pilot skill, if I take higher PS do I use crew like Kyle Katarn to get action economy?". Of course Darth Vader and Whisper reign supreme and Soontir is kicked in the nards but maybe that is what the Upsilon is for, the build for high ps action economy synergy route.

Well, there is always Wave XI to look forward to now. Just gimme my gosh darned TIE Striker haha.

 Da Kommizzar wrote:
Sabine like stuff (Midrange) > Low PS (aggro) > Ace (combo.control) > Sabine like stuff (Mid-Range)

becomes the Rock, Paper, Scissors?

The problem is that the midrange and low-PS stuff just auto-loses to u-boats. So if you nerf PTL aces what you're left with is a metagame consisting of u-boats and tailored anti-u-boat lists (like that Wes/Biggs list) that suck at everything besides beating that one specific target list. Making the counter to PTL aces go on u-boats is just a catastrophically stupid decision.

Without PTL pilots like Jake become stronger and it forces decisions like: "Do I choose action economy at a lower pilot skill, do I take 1 action per turn with the higher Pilot skill, if I take higher PS do I use crew like Kyle Katarn to get action economy?".

No, without PTL pilots like Jake become no longer viable at all. Without the action economy PTL gives you it's impossible to justify taking an expensive ace (other than the rare Whisper/Vader/Poe type that has built-in action economy). You just won't live long enough to make back that point cost with only one action per turn, and spending ~30 points on a support HWK to replace a 3-point EPT is just not going to work. A-wings, interceptors, TAPs, etc, they're all going to be nonexistent in a slicer-heavy metagame. If you want to get rid of PTL without completely screwing over aces you have to go back and re-design the entire game to make it possible. FFG missed that opportunity when they printed PTL and then cards based on the existence of PTL, so we're stuck with either keeping PTL or removing aces from the game.

Huh, interesting. That's a shame, but it now makes it seem even more like they regret making PTL the way it is or at all and are frustrated with finding ways to do anything. I feel like PTL is why some random unique pilots don't have EPTs even if the lower Generic does have one...

(If PTL were removed or becomes unplayable due to slicer, not that this is what I am suggesting) Is there now way that players can learn to maneuver better to compensate for lack of PTL? If you have Jake Ferral with Focus/Barrel Roll, you can potentially arc-dodge just fine with good game sense, right? Top table pros can guess where aces will be with PTL and maneuver accordingly, with PTL helping them adjust a ton to make up for their mistakes and allowing them to do maneuvers like 2 bank all day.

Not considering slicer:
In a world with Experimental Interface being the "only PTL" brings Expert Handling as a thingy for Soontir but makes him more expensive... :/

 Da Kommizzar wrote:
(If PTL were removed or becomes unplayable due to slicer, not that this is what I am suggesting) Is there now way that players can learn to maneuver better to compensate for lack of PTL? If you have Jake Ferral with Focus/Barrel Roll, you can potentially arc-dodge just fine with good game sense, right? Top table pros can guess where aces will be with PTL and maneuver accordingly, with PTL helping them adjust a ton to make up for their mistakes and allowing them to do maneuvers like 2 bank all day.

No. Saying "learn to maneuver better" implies that you have a significant skill advantage over a weak opponent. If you're both at comparable skill levels then you're not going to make up for the loss of PTL because your opponent is going to have "good game sense" as well and be able to match your decisions. So, outside of crushing newbies, losing PTL is just a straight loss for aces.

The flipped coin is that there has already been a straight loss for non-aces unless they are auto-take Jumpmasters or some other min-maxed ship (or just... maxed). It seems like the only non-ace lists worth taking are either Jumpmaster-esque, Tie Swarm, or turret-spam. Stuff like BBBBZ has all but died, right? I ask you because I have less insight on anything but what I see on youtube and what my FLGS experience has been than you do.

IE: Since when do you see Tie Bombers, or Generic versions of the aces? In reviews and videos it seems like it is always about "Nah, this pilot is trash-garbage because he can't take PTL or doesn't have high PS/action bar to make use of PTL"

It seems like PTL and other similar things have killed those ships but killing PTL kills aces right back. What would the compromise have to be?

 Da Kommizzar wrote:
The flipped coin is that there has already been a straight loss for non-aces unless they are auto-take Jumpmasters or some other min-maxed ship (or just... maxed). It seems like the only non-ace lists worth taking are either Jumpmaster-esque, Tie Swarm, or turret-spam. Stuff like BBBBZ has all but died, right? I ask you because I have less insight on anything but what I see on youtube and what my FLGS experience has been than you do.

Right. It's a very bad metagame right now, but removing PTL aces just makes the diversity problem even worse.

It seems like PTL and other similar things have killed those ships but killing PTL kills aces right back. What would the compromise have to be?

The compromise is to accept that mid-PS pilots just aren't going to be viable very often. They're at a huge disadvantage because of core game mechanics, they're too expensive to spam like the cheap generics but they're not as capable as the high-end aces. Their biggest threat is very often the cheap generic spam that is just plain more efficient at doing what the mid-PS ships are trying to do. So you'd have to simultaneously nerf high-PS aces and nerf generic spam, and that probably requires major changes to the core rules rather than individual ship/upgrade cards.

The compromise for the tournament metagame is to remove the Jumpmaster from the game entirely. The whole ship is a blatant balance mistake, and I don't see a very elegant way to fix it. This removes the biggest obstacle to the things that scare Palp aces (rebel regen, conner nets, stresshogs, etc), and if that's not enough you errata Palpatine to be epic-only. Once it's possible to survive 1-2 turns of shooting without having 9999 green dice, Palpatine, and autothrusters there are a lot more viable strategies, and the metagame should be much healthier.

The tech cards for the upsilon look intesting - targeting synchroniser looks like it does something to do with Attack:Target Lock weapons.

The problem with seeing the upsilon as "the new palpatine transport" is that if you slice out enough points to take it and palpatine, you won't have enough to take clasic palpatine aces.

Co-ordinate is nice but only if you've got a ship who wants the action more than the shuttle - so probably a 2-ship list. From purely first order stuff, I guess omega ace being able to get a focus/target lock combo is nice but not worth a big expensive support ship.

The dial will be key. If it's got a white hard turn (like a Yv666) then I'll happily accept the cost increase. The elite pilot talent is a good thing, too - it might even be worth considering expert handling...

Essentially, if you take an upsilon - unlike a lambda - rather than a palp truck and two aces, you've got the shuttle, one ace and one cheap generic filler, or two low-cost aces (like two Tie/fo aces). Therefore the shuttle has to serve as a primary combatant - you can't afford to have it avoid the fight like manaroo or a palpatine Omicron.

What pilot criticals are there in the new deck?

Moar!

I have a feeling "Fanatical Devotion" on the Upsilon will be taken more often than the "Let Me Show You the Dark Side". It looks like FD works like Markmanship, but also has some defensive ability as well (can't make it out).

Seriously though, I hope the release of the Upsilon makes them go back and do some revisions for the old Lambda. We could use a Large Ship "aces" set that gives some love/help to those first few released large ships - it looks like the Falcon will get a makeover, but I'd like to see some reworking on the Decimator (so Ysard isn't always an auto-include, maybe give it a Defender-like ability to fire 2 weapons or shoot at two targets), Lambda (some versions with an EPT would be nice) and Firespray (a reworked Fett would be nice, a "Jango's Teachings" would be a nice nod to the Clone Wars if they can't do Jango outright).

On PTL, I wish they would make that card "Disable on use" (not Discard). I'm sick of seeing it on every build.

I'm fairly certain Kylo Ren's ability works on shields as the opponent is still suffering critical damage, just not taking the effect. The ability is very, very good.

I like the wave overall. Now, FFG just need to fix the jumpmaster and we'll have a good game on our hands again. I'm fine with slicer tools with the exception of how it combos with contracted scout.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, the condition cards, whilst new, are backwards compatible as they're upgrade cards and can be equipped to older ships.

Vargas79 wrote:
I'm fairly certain Kylo Ren's ability works on shields as the opponent is still suffering critical damage, just not taking the effect. The ability is very, very good.

I've seen this argument after posting my initial "this is garbage" review, but I'm going to wait until we see some confirmation from FFG that it actually works this way. It's really counter-intuitive that you're still taking critical damage even though you don't get a face-up damage card, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if FFG FAQed it that way.

Also, the condition cards, whilst new, are backwards compatible as they're upgrade cards and can be equipped to older ships.

They are, but there won't be new ones for ships that should have had them. For example, support HWKs could have had abilities that use conditions, but it's too late for that. It's kind of like how none of the older ships have t-rolls/s-loops even if, fluff-wise, they're more maneuverable or newer than ships from later waves.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Stormonu wrote:
On PTL, I wish they would make that card "Disable on use" (not Discard). I'm sick of seeing it on every build.

IOW, "remove aces from the game". See previous comments on why you can't change or remove PTL without wrecking the game.

I'll readily admit that I interpreted it the same as you to begin with, but the rules as written are perfectly clear. Even with shields you are suffering a critical damage. That said it was perfectly clear that the inquisitors ability didn't shut off autothrusters and we all know what happened there...

Advanced homing missiles already let you bypass Shields with crtical. This is just another way of doing the same thing.

The more I think about it, the more I think Sabines TIE has potential. Zeb with Sabines masterpiece is cheap as buggery - the cheapest crew slot in the game, I think - rebel operative is close but very slow and predictable - and you can use it to bring tge cheap support crew - kanan jarrus, jan ors, etc, or a black market slicer, without needing to break the bank to have a ship to put them in. If BMS is that scary for an ace opponent, then a cheap rebel TIE gives you a weapon which can at least give soontir fel pause, without needing to go the whole hog tooling up your squad to kill aces.