Why?
We've been complaining about ECM for literally years, and get this seemingly well-made competitor for it, that looks explicitly designed to compete, and... CW only.
I can't see this breaking the game on any existing GCW ships, which leaves me with 2 explanations: 1.) not making GCW players buy Clone Wars expansions, and 2.) leaving future GCW design space open.
Given the release of our first card pack, other cards in the release being faction-neutral and no indications of upcoming GCW content (heck, there isn't that much to make), neither of those answers really satisfies me. Is anyone else feeling a little... miffed at this card getting era-locked? Or is there a compelling reason why this would have been overpowered?
I'm a little concerned with Thermal shields.
ECM is usually used to protect a brace from a large volley. Yes you can use it for other things like salvo or an evade, but if the enemy have a big volley available to them in this turn players will often save their ECM until it happens. ECM was powerful but now is fine as it has an un-exhaust cost of a repair token.
Thermal shields has a similar effect to Brace + ECM. It goes off before accuracies can lock down a brace. It halves the damage by halving the initial dice, but then extra dice added later (Ackbar, E-Rax, CF, QBT, Slaved Turrets) will not be included in this reduction. It is cheaper than ECM, it isn't an exhaust an you don't have to spend a repair token to use it again. Thermals can also be used to eliminate colors that can crit you such as being shot by an ISD-II of 4 Red + 4 Blue. Eliminate the 4 blue and hey presto no Heavy Ion Crit or eliminate the 4 red and no LTT or Krennic reroll. Lastly your brace with thermal shields is immune to commander Palpataine declaring the brace as a use-it and loose-it this turn.
If thermal Shields were an exhaust, even with an auto recover, they would be fine and balanced. I would be happy to take them and go against them. However with Clone wars commander Grievous and particularly Luminara the Thermal shields can be used several times a turn.
Honestly, Thermal Shields feel like a step back from the rebalancing that was done with Armada 1.5. Its the Xi7-Situation all over again. The new crazy card that you just cant afford to not use. I feel like there is little to no reason to ever use any other defensive retrofit on a clone wars ship that has brace. Thats disappointing, especially given that all the other revealed upgrade cards seem very well designed and fun to play. I really hope we dont have to wait another 5 years as with Xi7s for Thermal Shields to get properly balanced.
I should add though, maybe during playtesting of the new Clone Wars Factions FFG discovered that the new ships need a bigger defensive buff to compete against redundant defense tokens and higher hulls. It's always a possibility that there are justified reasons for a at first place op-seeming upgrade. Lets see how it plays out against the OT factions.
Well in general the CW era ships seem to be weaker defensively as even their heaviest hitters have no redundant defense tokens so one could view this as a commander-specific counterbalancing option.
Even then Thermals can only be taken one variant of each republic ship chassis and not even that for the sepratists which limits where it could possibly show up and again speaks to their weaker defensive abilities overall.
It seems like Thermals are made as more of a defensive buff for some of the super lasers that have been existent in Rebels/Imperials. And they make concentrating fire and add die effects (QBTs, Mar Tuuk, Ackbar, Spinal/Enhanced Armament, ExRax to name a few) more important. If they make con fire a worthy dial for some ships than I'd say they're worth it!
Spinal and Enhanced Armament increases battery value, which can be removed with Thermals, no?
@sasska yep, looks like you're right. Tell your sister.....you were right
An Onager with Tua and Thermal shields.
An Agate Assault Frigate with two braces and Thermal Shields.
I don't really like either of these two options. I'm glad it's faction locked.
I don't want to complain about the upgrade before it's here, but I don't understand why it's the same price as Cluster Bombs and Reinforced Blast Doors, which must be discarded. Its existence makes me even more leery of taking crit effects like ACM and APT, which are already in dangerous territory due to the evade change.
My guess would be because when it's up against a ship outfitted for a lot of dice adding and fixing which take place after the Thermal effect is over it's efficacy might drop off considerably. Criticals might actually be the best way to mitigate it actually as DCO is never really seen except on the SSD and the CW factions have too many other officers they need to be using already.
I guess I'm just cranky because I feel like it's so hard to take something like an MC30 with Dodonna (used to be my favorite Rebel commander) and APT. I hate playing a game in which my MC30 gets that one shot and the crit doesn't go off. Demo, Sato or TF with APT or ACM are probably fine. But otherwise it seems like External Racks is almost always the ordnance you should take. External Racks goes up in value even more against Thermal Shields.
so, let's say you get a double arcing H9-MC30 (for purposes of this example I'm only worrying about thermals versus an accuracied brace, redirects and other stuff pollutes the point i'm trying to make here). If they thermals your front arc, that gives you both A) a blue and a black or 2 black (and you can con-fire to make 2-3 total black) and B) a side arc. If they thermals your side, they didn't thermals your front, which means you con-fired then and got 3 black dice and a blue. You also have 2 blue and a black out the side, which again, potential con fire there. What if they thermal both shots? Then your opponent discarded his brace against your MC30 and that's a win.
Your damage isn't as significant, you THINK, but they're eliminating a lot of potential at crits from one arc, leaving the other either wide open to take advantage of. Removing a black die is an expected damage of 1, it just seems stronger because of less dice chance for a crit. But adding in dice afterwards can take care of it for sure, and if you're willing to reroll for the crit it's actually more damage than if he had waited to brace (the front thermaled with one crit would be 3 plus the APT crit, if the blue is a hit, versus 4 braced to 2). Basically, I personally would still use APTs, if you know, I flew Dodonna more. I'm also more willing to risk my MC30 to try to get a second turn of shots off, so, YMMV.
I guess part of my logic is that to the extent this card is meta-warping (and @Mad Cat brought up some good arguments for why it will be), the meta will be warped. You cannot ignore half the factions having good reason to take something. Crits suck even more now, Intel Officer just saw a major stock increase if he shuts this down (the Yavaris/FCT ruling suggests to me he does), etc.
There's a discussion to be had that this might not be good for the game, and I don't know that I agree because I'm tired of facing the long line of haymaker large bases since wave VII, but that's almost its own can of worms. If it's broken you'll still be seeing OP Thermal Shields everywhere, you'll just be seeing less faction flexibility as well.
@Bertie Wooster In the first case I suspect your grievances lie with a chassis that should be changed anyway (the Onager), not the little extra push it gets compared to ECM. Agate... that's an interesting point. There's definitely synergy there, but to be honest I like the idea of a really, really durable Assault Frigate. I wouldn't mind giving it more love. And some of the other combos with synergy are exciting to me, like Targeting Scramblers or Hand of Justice.
Might just be different visions for the meta, but I'm with you in mourning the death of crits. It seems likely that ship sailed as soon as this card was printed, but maybe I'm wrong. The exhaust APTs/ACMs already have lessens the wound *a bit* because they're 1 hit max on the double arc anyway.
i dont think Intel Officer works against it, as IO doesnt look backward and the brace will have been spent by the time he triggers
@geek19 I'd love for you to be right, but the thing that's holding me back:
Yavaris takes effect when resolving a squadron command, but previous squadron movements during Yavaris' activation are relevant to the effect.
I'm not convinced IO doesn't similarly look backward, since the spend for Thermals are in the window it states as relevant.
I think thermals are deliberayely powerful and era restricted on purpose. I think they are a continuation of the 1.5 effort to balance the 4 factions by hamnering the original era OP stuff (demo, yavaris, avenger et al) so that the new factions dont have to have similarly stupid stuff to compete.
And im not remotely convinced of the backward looking intel officer. That just sounds dumb
@The Jabbawookiee The consensus among Karneck, Dras etc. is that Intel Officer does not look backward, as it reads "is spent" not "was spent."
Assault Frigates are already much more survivable due to the evade change. Both of these potatoes did really well in the VWC.
Louis-Andre:
[ flagship ] Assault Frigate Mark II B (72 points)
- Kyrsta Agate (com) ( 20 points)
- Gallant Haven ( 8 points)
- Walex Blissex ( 5 points)
- Flight Controllers ( 6 points)
- Boosted Comms ( 4 points)
- Reinforced Blast Doors ( 5 points)
- Linked Turbolaser Towers ( 7 points)
= 127 total ship cost
Angry Ewok:
Assault Frigate Mk2 B (72)