Stressmaster Yorr

[a4rino 107]

Jendon has been a really popular Lambda pilot, but I hadn't heard much about people using Captain Yorr so I decided to give him a shot in a couple games today. I ran this list:

 

• Captain Yorr + Rebel Captive + Intelligence Agent
• Dark Curse
• Black Squadron Pilot + Elusiveness
• Black Squadron Pilot + Elusiveness
• Saber Squadron Pilot + Push the Limit

 

The idea behind this list is pretty obvious - use the Elite Pilot Upgrades to buff the TIEs and then pass their stress on to Yorr, and allow Dark Curse to be his awesome self. Meanwhile, I stuck a Rebel Captive on Yorr to make him a less attractive target.

 

Being able to pass stress to Yorr meant I could use Elusiveness twice in one round and still K-turn in the next round after passing both stress tokens to Yorr. Everyone except Dark Curse has pilot skill 4, so that gives lots of flexibility in resolving movements and attacks in whatever order suits you.

 

I underestimated how important Rebel Captive would be. People tend to focus-fire with multiple ships to take down the big ships fast, but doing so against Yorr means that your very best pilot (with the highest pilot skill) will have to eat a stress token. It really discourages your opponent from declaring you as a target. When the alternative is to fire on Dark Curse or TIEs with elusiveness, this is a lose-lose situation to put your opponent into.

 

Yorr's maneuver dial wasn't an issue. I kept giving him green maneuvers that purposely overlapped my TIEs, shedding a stress each time and keeping his arc relevant.

 

Saber Squadron Pilot was the only letdown. He went down early in both games, and he was never close enough to Yorr to pass a stress. I think those points could have been better spent elsewhere, but I usually play Rebels so my Imperial fleet is lacking.

 

[The_Brown_Bomber 573]

clever use of elusiveness. im interested to see how it plays.

[swampthing2 33]

I'm curious how often you wanted to give Yorr another stress but you could not because he already had two.

[DraconPyrothayan 6,107]

Yorr can receive stress if he has 2 or fewer, thus having a max of 3.

I'd go with

Captain Yorr + Fire-Control System

Howlrunner + Elusiveness + Stealth Device

Mauler Mithel + Elusiveness

Black Squadron Pilot + Elusiveness

Black Squadron Pilot + Elusiveness

You can demote Mauler to another Black Squadron Pilot if you're dead set on having the Rebel Captive.

[a4rino 107]

I'm curious how often you wanted to give Yorr another stress but you could not because he already had two.

 

I don't think it ever happened that I really needed to give Yorr another stress and couldn't, but I was using Elusiveness really liberally so it did put a limit on how much I could abuse it. Elusiveness is the type of thing though where it's only an obvious decision when your opponent rolls a crit or you're in danger of being destroyed, and in those cases Yorr was always able to eat the stress.

[a4rino 107]

Yorr can receive stress if he has 2 or fewer, thus having a max of 3.

I'd go with

Captain Yorr + Fire-Control System

Howlrunner + Elusiveness + Stealth Device

Mauler Mithel + Elusiveness

Black Squadron Pilot + Elusiveness

Black Squadron Pilot + Elusiveness

You can demote Mauler to another Black Squadron Pilot if you're dead set on having the Rebel Captive.

 

I would have to buy another TIE expansion to run this myself, but the guys I play with probably wouldn't mind if I borrowed a TIE. Like I said, my Imperial fleet is limited.

 

I like the idea of Fire Control System on Yorr. He was usually unable to perform an action for all the stress, so FCS would give him a little buff in that area. I am dead set on Rebel Captive though. He was awesome.

[Disgruntled 245]

I've tried Yorr a couple times, I don't think I ever will again. The Lambda is hard enough to maneuver without taking extra stress tokens.

[DraconPyrothayan 6,107]

The truly amazing thing about Yorr and Elusiveness is that you can go full recursion mode. It goes like this:

Person with Elusiveness is defending. They check to see if they already have a stress token. They do not, so they activate Elusiveness to re-roll one die. They get a stress token.

Captain Yorr checks to see if he has more than 2 stress tokens. He does not, and nabs that stress token.

Person with Elusiveness is (still) defending. They check to see if they already have a stress token. They do not, so they activate Elusiveness to re-roll one die. They get a stress token.

Captain Yorr checks to see if he has more than 2 stress tokens. He does not, and nabs that stress token.

Person with Elusiveness is (still) defending. They check to see if they already have a stress token. They do not, so they activate Elusiveness to re-roll one die. They get a stress token.

Captain Yorr checks to see if he has more than 2 stress tokens. He does not, and nabs that stress token.

Person with Elusiveness is (still) defending. They check to see if they already have a stress token. They do not, so they activate Elusiveness to re-roll one die. They get a stress token.

Captain Yorr checks to see if he has more than 2 stress tokens. He does, and cannot nab that stress token.

4 re-rolled dice from a single attack, all before your opponent can activate a focus or target lock. Note: a die re-rolled cannot be re-rolled again, so you've screwed over their offensive re-rolls as well.

Now, this may be errata'd because of Opportunist in the next expansion (4 cost, take a stress to up your primary weapons value by 1. This combo, plus Targeting Computers, gives Soontir Fel an Alpha Strike of 7 attack dice, focused and target locked!)

[a4rino 107]

Opportunist...This combo, plus Targeting Computers, gives Soontir Fel an Alpha Strike of 7 attack dice, focused and target locked!

 

I hadn't thought of this. This would be insane and, from what I can tell, totally within the rules.

Edited October 6, 2013 by a4rino

[Effenhoog 990]

The thing with stress token abilities and Yorr, is that it brings up an interesting question.  The text on elusiveness (and opportunist) read, basically, that YOU (the ship using the ability) may receive one stress token, then resolve the ability (in the case of elusiveness, reroll one attack die).  The card specifically lists YOU receiving the stress token first and lists it as a requirement for the ability to activate.  If Yorr receives the stress token instead of YOU, then technically YOU never received the stress token and arguably do not get to activate the rest of your ability.

 

Similarly, it brings up the question of whether Soontir Fel receives his bonus focus token if he does something to get a stress token but it is intercepted by Yorr instead, and so Soontir never actually receives the stress token and potentially does not get his free focus token.

 

I am not claiming to be a rules expert but this is how it reads to me.  The final piece that mostly convinces me is the way that Yorr's ability text is written.  "When another friendly ship at Range 1-2 would receive a stress token, if you have 2 or fewer stress tokens, you may receive that token instead."  The key word here being "would" as it implies that they never actually receive the stress token.  If it instead read something like "When another friendly ship at Range 1-2 receives a stress token, if you have 2 or fewer stress tokens, you may receive that token instead" then I think there would be more of an argument for it.  Just based on the card text for elusiveness/opportunist and Yorr's pilot card, I personally do not feel that they are able to work together.

 

Now with an ability like Push the Limit, where the card text states that you use the ability (perform the free action) and THEN take a stresstoken, it seems to be fine since you already satisfied the first conditions (perfom an action), then performed your free action, and then lastly you take the stress token which Yorr then intercepts.

 

Just my current opinions, which could change if someone makes a convincing argument or FFG makes an official ruling.

Edited October 6, 2013 by Effenhoog

[DraconPyrothayan 6,107]

Soontir Fel would not activate if Yorr takes all of his stress tokens.

However, if the stress token going to someone else cancels Elusiveness or Opportunist, neither would produce a stress token in the first place. Programming-wise, it goes like this:

Defending triggers Elusiveness

Elusiveness [Receive Stress Token and force re-roll of attack die]

Receive Stress Token triggers Yorr

[if someone would receive Stress Token, receive it instead]

Elusiveness [[Yorr] and force re-roll of attack die]

[a4rino 107]

The final piece that mostly convinces me is the way that Yorr's ability text is written. "When another friendly ship at Range 1-2 would receive a stress token, if you have 2 or fewer stress tokens, you may receive that token instead."  The key word here being "would."

 

Now with an ability like Push the Limit, where the card text states that you use the ability (perform the free action) and THEN take a stress token, it seems to be fine.

 

This is a compelling argument and I am inclined to think that your interpretation is correct. This would be a shame though because Elusiveness with Yorr was really fun!

 

EDIT: As for the Soontir Fel thing, I think Dracon's idea was that Soontir would pass 3 stress tokens to Yorr and then eat the last stress token himself. This last stress token would be the one to give him the focus.

Edited October 6, 2013 by a4rino

[Effenhoog 990]

It seems like the big questions is this: if you start to activate an ability (elusiveness/opportunist), but then another ability (Yorr) prevents one of the starting conditions from actually occurring (receiving a stress token), do the game rules allow for the ability to just fail and stop midway or are you locked into resolving it.

 

again I am not trying to argue "my side" I just want to be sure that the rule question is fully debated and resolved one way or another.  But, this is not the rules forum and I do not intend to derail the thread so I suppose it is a question for another time.

[DraconPyrothayan 6,107]

On the about 7 posts about this subject, it argues back and forth like this until it finally resolves to "We need to wait for an FAQ".

[Effenhoog 990]

On the about 7 posts about this subject, it argues back and forth like this until it finally resolves to "We need to wait for an FAQ".

 

I suppose we will then   Interestingly enough, I went to look for threads about this in the rules forum and skimming the one I found it seemed like most of the argument was about whether you could actually recursively use abilities like elusiveness or opportunist at all, regardless of how the stress token interacts with Yorr's ability.  Some interesting stuff in there, although the debate itself was a bit less civilized.

 

Also to actually add something relevant to the thread, I am interested in trying a squadron like this:

100 points

-----

Saber Squadron Pilot (24)

TIE Interceptor (21), Push the Limit (3)

Saber Squadron Pilot (24)

TIE Interceptor (21), Push the Limit (3)

Saber Squadron Pilot (24)

TIE Interceptor (21), Push the Limit (3)

Captain Yorr (28)

Lambda-Class Shuttle (24), Rebel Captive (3), Intelligence Agent (1)

 

the basic idea being that the sabers push the limit and k-turn as they see fit and Yorr tries to take as many of the stress tokens as possible and just be as annoying as he can.  I'm not sold on Yorr's upgrades/crew but with just 4 points left over I'm not sure what to do with them yet (4 points is two targeting computers for the Sabers with push the limit so that could be interesting when those are finally out)

Edited October 6, 2013 by Effenhoog