Tawnos
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Posts posted by Tawnos
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Operations use the current state of an item when you get to resolving them, not the state when time froze.
This. Locking in state at trigger time is a logistical nightmare.
KineticOperator reacted to this -
My interpretation of Fett/Navigator is that any effect that modifies the manuever dial is considered to have modified the manuever that you revealed. So, for example, if I reveal a 2 Left Bank for Fett, and decide to change it to a 2 Right Bank, I'm now considered to have revealed a 2 Right Bank. And the same goes for Navigator.
When multiple effects would be triggered, the controlling player gets to choose the order in which they resolve. So, in my mind, it plays out like this:
1) Fett (with Navigator) reveals a 2 Left Bank.
2) Both Fett and Navigator trigger.
3) I choose to resolve Fett first.
4) I've revealed a 2 Left Bank, and elect to rotate the dial to a 2 Right Bank. The fact that I ever revealed a 2 Left Bank is gone, and I'm now considered for all purposes to have revealed a 2 Right Bank.
5) I choose to resolve Navigator.
6) Seeing that I've revealed a 2 Right Bank, I elect to change it to a 1 Right Bank.
And, of course, Navigator and Fett can resolve similarly in either order.
There's nothing I'm aware of in the rules of FAQ that back this up, but it's what makes sense to me. Generally, locking in the state of a game when multiple effects trigger simultaneously is a bad idea, since it requires you to remember what that state was after possibly resolving several other effects that change that state.
So, my personal opinion is that state-based effects should be evaluated at the time they're resolved, not when they're triggered.
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Ever since they released X-wing, I've thought that they may have missed an opportunity to do something really neat with the game along the lines of ships and pilots. From what we understand of the reversed engineered point system, PS1 ships represent the value of any given ship at its most basic level.
Now, imagine if all ship cards had been printed this way, but with only the ship-based upgrades (droids, crew, missiles, etc.), ship stats, and basic squad point value listed on the card, with the empty spots for pilot skill, unique abilities, EPT, and squad point adjustment.
Then, all pilots are printed on transparent overlays that modify the base ship card by adding the pilot skill value, a unique ability (if applicable), possibly an EPT, and bump the squad cost with a "+X".
Of course, there are logistical issues with this approach. The cost of printing on transparent material, the necessity to stack ship and pilot cards during gameplay (all but enforcing the use of card sleeves).....not to mention that the squad value of any given pilot likely isn't calculated in a vacuum and is based in part on the type of ship they're in.
And of course there's the issue of game balance. The choices of which ships to play are restricted by what abilities you want in your squad. The ability to pick and choose combinations of the best ships and pilots could very possibility be a balancing nightmare.
Still.....it would've been neat to see in action.
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Sweet. Got one, will be wearing it at Worlds.
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The one I'm looking at is this:
- Boba Fett (39) /w PtL (3), Navigator (3)
- Soontir Fel (27) /w PtL
- Turr Phennir (25)
Bit of a re-imagining of the Three Amigos.
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If you reveal a red maneuver, you receive a stress token.
If, during a K-turn, you end up in contact with other ship's base, you do not perform the K-turn portion of the movement, and you receive a stress token as normal.
Moral of the story: be sure you've got room when you wanna K-turn.
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I have gotten all X-Wing book series, and i prefer the Rogue squadron novels (i think by Stackpole) over the Ghost Squadron books, even if i really like Piggy and Janson as characters.
I also just finished reading the Thrawn trilogy which is really nice. But i am kind of a Pilot Geek so i prefer Everything that turns around Starfighters and Wedgie Antilles XD
I just began to read the new "Mercy Kill" book but idk yet if it will convince me.
(Spoiler alert)
The original Characters must be really old by then and i amreally used to them. Even if Stackpole and to a lesser extend Zahn make them die at a good pace in the old books, i liked reading about them... I hope the book will not turn into a "Space Cowboys" or "RED".
You mean Wraith Squadron. And as for Mercy Kill, don't worry too much about the age of the characters; there are very few of the original squad actually in Mercy Kill. They've got a mostly new team.
I've been reading Star Wars novels for 20 years, and there have been precious few that I didn't enjoy. I actually recently re-read the Rogue Squadron and Wraith Squadron series (thanks to X-wing for convincing me to pull those off the shelf again), and they're just as good as I remember them.
The only novels I wasn't a huge fan of were the ones right around the Darksaber time period. Children of the Jedi, The New Rebellion, Planet of Twilight (blech!), The Crystal Star.....none of those really did it for me. Of course, it's been 15 years since I picked those books up, so I might have to go re-read them now to see if I can pin down what I didn't like about them.
Without too much in the way of spoilers, I will say that I truly enjoyed the Legacy series, right up until the end. So anti-climactic.....
Ultimately, my favorites are the Han Solo trilogy: The Paradise Snare, Hutt Gambit, and Rebel Dawn. I've read these many times over the years, and they've one of the first recommendations I make to people wanting to get into Star Wars novels, along with anything by Zahn and Shadows of the Empire.
I could talk on this subject all day, so I'll leave it at that. For now.
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GodotIsWaiting4U said:
Maybe not PERFECT, but good.
This.
Being "good" doesn't require perfection. If it did, no one would be the "good guys". Moral relativism has no place in Star Wars. At its core, it's a galactic battle between two clearly defined forces of good and evil. Period.
Unfortunately, a lot of EU stuff has gone "off script" in this regard (looking at you, NJO series).
The Jedi made mistakes as an order. The movies don't highlight it, but many Jedi left the order at the beginning of the Clone Wars because they felt the Order had lost its way and was blind to the corruption of the Republic they'd sword to protect. Slavery? Jedi Generals? These things were never supposed to happen. Most of those that stayed were killed by Order 66. Some of the "Lost Ones" that left the order prior to Order 66 survived the purge, though Vader was pretty thorough in hunting them down.
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I've been running this lately:
- Vader, PtL, Engine Upgrade, Homing Missiles
- Soontir Fel, PtL
- Turr Phennir, VI, Stealth Device
I haven't found PtL to be as useful (or necessary) on Turr as bringing him up to 9 PS. His ability to avoid retribution is plenty good without extra actions, and the Stealth Device gives him more staying power for those situations where he just can't get out of every firing arc. I feel like Turr being PS 9 and, thus, being able to reposition very early in the firing order has more value than PtL on him.
Fel with PtL is pretty self-explanatory. He doesn't really need anything more to be a royal pain.
The Engine Upgrade on Vader is incredible; highly underrated and, seemingly, underestimated by many. The majority of my opponents have simply not taken it into their distance calculations for the first turn of the game, and end up eating a surprise first turn Target Lock + Focus Homing Missile.
This squad tears up Swarm, or really anything that doesn't have a large amount of 360 degree firing arcs, simply by its strong ability to re-position post-maneuver. Even against YT squads it performs admirably, since it can abandon its philosophy of "avoid firing arcs" in favor of extra Focus/Evade actions to "turtle up" and beat down the YT from a safe distance.
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^^^
Remember when they said "Scottie doesn't know"? They were wrong.
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warwalk said:
Now this may be a bit of rules lawyering, but no where in the Xwing tournament rules does it specifically say that obstacles (asteroids) MUST be used.
http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/x-wing/support/X-Wing_TournamentRules_V1.0.pdf
It clearly states at the beginning of the Tournament rules that all FFG X-wing tournaments use the Dogfight scenario. Later in the document, the Setup for that scenario is outlined, and the use of asteroids is clearly stated:
Squad Deployment Procedure
5) Each player selects three asteroid tokens from his core set. Then the players take turns placing
their chosen asteroid tokens into the play area, alternating after each token is placed. The player
with initiative places the first asteroid token. An asteroid token cannot be placed within Range 1–2
of any edge of the play area or within Range 1 of another asteroid token. Players continue until all
six asteroid tokens are placed. -
You're correct about the Regionals, as far as I know. The setup is the standard 100-point Dogfight scenario. That includes 6 asteroids. This setup isn't optional.
I'd contact FFG about the tournament and ask what, if anything, they can do.
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Fel Wrath?
in X-Wing
No, I understand your points just fine. I just don't agree with them.
All of my points are based upon the reverse engineered "value" of any given ability. Somewhere buried in these forums, someone did a RE analysis of the Wave 1 ships and posted the "value" of each point of Attack, Agility, Hull, Shield, upgrade slots, and the values of each pilot's ability. I wonder if that ever got updated for Wave 2….
Anyways, in a sentence, Fel's Wrath's ability is not worth the cost by my estimation. And I've been using other pilot + upgrade values as a comparison to the pure squad-point value of his ability. I am fully aware that pilots are pointed higher just for having tje Elite Upgrade option and so on and so forth. My point is that you can estimate the value of any given ability by comparing it to a similar vanilla pilot and weighting their squad cost by the difference in squad polnt cost for the different in pilot skill, and that's exactly what I've been doing. Maybe using VI as the template for that isn't perfectly accurate, but I don't have the more accurate RE numbers on hand.
So, you are saying that you feel Fel's ability is worth the cost, even though it's a less useful "Cat 3" ability, as you're calling it. That's the part I disagree with. I don't think it's worth its value even as a weaker "Cat 3" ability, if it's even that at all.
And I would never try to activate his ability on purpose. That's actually the primary reason why I don't like it.
I feel like this is getting fairly repetitive on both our parts, so maybe we should just agree to disagree for now.
One thing we CAN agree on is that higher pilot skill Interceptor are the shiz-NITE. I've been playing Fel +PtL, Turr + VI + Stealth, and Vader + PtL + EU + Homings over the past week, and it's crazy talk.
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I'd say roughly 50% of the time, the forums are unusable for me, due to either long load times, or the pages only partially loading or simply not loading at all. Nevermind the issues with posting. Sometimes the forum just eats your post and never actually displays it.
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I keep toying with the idea of Mauler with either Veteran Instincts + Engine Upgrade or Push the Limit + Engine Upgrade.
I could also see doing Daredevil + Engine Upgrade if you like making head-to-head passes. Surprise! I'm turned around on a dime and behind you.
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Fel Wrath?
in X-Wing
Tell you what, give me a couple weeks, and I'll toy around with some squads that include Wrath. I don't think you can build a squad around him, exactly, so I'll just take some of my favorite Imp squads and sub him in for other ships.
I realize that I'm arguing from a weak position here having never actually used him. I'll come back and report my impressions after I've played him a few times.
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Fel Wrath?
in X-Wing
Vonpenguin said:
But if Wedge is given the choice between fell's wrath and a generic, He'll choose the generic because then he has a chance to remove an attack against him even though the generic would normally be a lower priority. That's what I mean.
Sure, that may be the case. I fail to see how that's to the benefit of the person fielding Fel's Wrath, though. Why would you want to encourage your opponent to shoot down your other ships so they can't shoot back? It's not like Wrath gains some advantage by staying alive that any other Interceptor wouldn't have. Seems to me that's just Wrath throwing his buddies under the bus.
@Kinetic:
Also, I did say that I know Avenger Squad can't take elite upgrades; I was using VI as a basis for rough point value comparison of equal pilot skill Interceptor, since I don't have time to find the reverse engineering values that someone posted here a while back. Most of my musings here are about the value of the squad points being invested, so whether or not an exact scenario is impossible (like Avenger with VI) is irrelevant.
As for Ion Cannons, R2, etc., those are examples of abilities that generate advantages for you. Maybe poor examples, since yes, Imperials can't use them, but in an abstract sense the point stands. When you're losing, you look for ways to gain advantages and decrease your opponent's advantages. Wrath's ability is poor at both of these things, hence my disagreement that he even qualifies as a "Cat 3" abiltity.
I think the difference in our mindsets is that you seem to like Wrath as a "rainy day" option. I would rather invest those points into reducing the chances of a "rainy day." A prevention vs. cure kind of thing. I'd rather have an Avenger with a Stealth Device for 23 points than Fel. If the SD helps him survive even one turn where he would have otherwise been destroyed, it's already served equal value to Wrath's ability, and has the potential to be much, much better.
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Fel Wrath?
in X-Wing
I like this discussion; it's a lot of good insight to how different players think and strategize. I certainly don't begrudge anyone Fel's Wrath who can make him work for them. He just doesn't fit my gaming mindset. At the end of the day, spending extra points on an ability that I don't want to use is completely counterintuitive to me. Why not spend those points on something that's good when you're winning and losing?
I'll concede that allowing Fel's Wrath to be in close range of one of your high-skill ships is something to avoid. Problem being is that those high-skill ships have a lot of options for staying out of his arc since they move after him; especially those pesky Imperial ships with their barrel rolls and boosts.
But as far as favoring other targets over Fel's Wrath, that has nothing to do with Fel's Wrath and everything to do with your other targeting options. Of course you're going to target the highest priority in arc; but that's going to be to case regardless of whether Fel's Wrath is one of those choices or not. For example, if you've got Wrath and Turr in arc with an equal chance of hitting both, of course you're going to target Turr. He's the higher priority target. But the same is true if it's Saber Squadron Pilot and Turr, too. That's doesn't make Turr a "poor man's Biggs". That makes Turr someone you want to murder much more than Wrath.We don't shoot at Biggs because we want to; we shoot at Biggs because the game won't let us shoot at anyone else.
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Fel Wrath?
in X-Wing
See, I disagree that Fel fits into any of those categories; especially not Cat 3. His ability isn't going to help you turn around a game that you're losing. His ability requires that you lose even harder for it to even activate.
Only those abilities that generete incremental advantage will help you turn around a losing game. Ion Cannons, R2-D2, strong manuevability….these things will help you turn around a game that you're losing by either denying your opponent options or giving yourself more options. Fel's ability doesn't generate any kind of advantage; he's a vanilla Interceptor until his death, at which point he becomes the equivalent of a crappy missile weapon:
- Bits-of-Wrath Missiles
- 23 pts.
- 3 (1-3)
- Attack (Fel's Wrath): Expend your Fel's Wrath and flip this card facedown to perform this attack. This attack is affected by range modifiers.
Okay, so that's mostly a joke……mostly. Really, the cost of that "missile" is the cost difference between an Avenger Squad Pilot with a Veteran Insticts (21) and Fel's Wrath (23). So, would you pay 2 squad points for that? Because I sure wouldn't.
And yes, I'm aware Avenger pilots can't have upgrades. I'm just making a rough point comparison.
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Fel Wrath?
in X-Wing
I guess I don't fully understand why his ability would change anyone's behavior. The shot is going to happen whether you kill him or not. There's very little you can do to mitigate that. I suppose if you can kill him before he closes distance, that would be ideal, but if he's closed to Range 1, then that ship has sailed. There's no reason to not dust him; he's getting that Range 1 shot on you either way.
As for ignoring him, that makes even less sense to me. It's akin to saying "I'm ignoring him and letting him shoot at me because I'm afraid he might shoot at me."
The only use I can see for him is to play him ridiculously aggressively and run him out front like an Academy pilot to gum up the works, and in theory if he dies you still get that last shot. But, why not just use an Academy pilot for that? They're almost half the cost and don't require you to sacrifice a 23-point ship to get full use of an ability.
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Fel Wrath?
in X-Wing
I'm not sure that's entirely true. No one shoots at Dark Curse because there tend to be higher priority targets, or at least equivalent targets that are easier to hit. If you objective is to decrease the enemy squad's effectiveness, there are more efficient targets that are easier to hit.
The situation isn't the same with Fel's Wrath. If you kill him, he shoots you. If you don't kill him, he still shoots you, and lives to do it again. Not shooting him isn't really doing yourself any favors.
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Fel Wrath?
in X-Wing
When I first saw Fel's Wrath, I knew right away I wouldn't like him. He violates one of my personal competitive gaming rules: Never plan to fail.
Any ability that only does something useful as a result of something bad happening to you isn't one I think is worth playing. Better to plan right from the get go to simply not fail at all. Being prepared for failure is all well and good; the ability to think on your feet and adapt to changing situations during a game is key to being a good player. But there's no need for your squad to devote almost 1/4 of its point value to a ship who's plan is to die.
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Oh man, what have I started…..well, screw it. Let's go the full nine.
If they ever do really delve into the EU stuff, it would be neat to see some crossover ships. Like when Rogue Squadron pilots TIEs for example, or Imperial Agents (like Gara Petothel or Erisi Dlarit) pilot X-wings. In which case, this has to happen:
- TIE/ln
- Lieutenant Kettch
- Attacking ships at Range 1 receive a stress token. Ships with stress tokens may not attack Lieutenant Kettch.
Yub, yub, Commander.
Amusing squad
in X-Wing
Posted
Ran this on Friday against a friend. The game was a stomp, though the dice gods definitely were favoring me that day.
I call it The Crit *******. And they did. Very much.
The Vader crew card is incredibly annoying on a Lambda shuttle. Most folks want to ignore these shuttles, but you can't when Vader is critting you every turn. And it's not hard to keep the shuttle in a firing position when you don't really care if it gets an action or not; that 0 Stop is key.
I'm not a huge fan of Maarek, but he definitely got the job done in this list, and I suspect that there will be upgrades in the future that make him viable.
Winged Gundark didn't even get to see combat. I was swinging him around the outside to get behind the enemy for his crits, but the dogfight was over before he even got there (yes, the alpha strike hit that hard).
The Alpha Squadron Pilot is really just for cleanup.
It's not a competitive squad, but I liked its versatility. It was fun to fly. I'm considering an alternative with just an OGP + Vader to free up points for some real pilots.