Question: when was
the last time you saw someone using the original core set damage
deck? I’d hazard a guess that it was just before the new core set
came out, right?
Why? Because newer
is better? Because of the large amount of people that claim it’s
better?
Because you’ve sat
down with both damage decks and critically gone through them with
reference to your list and worked out that the new deck is better?
Nah, me neither… until very recently.
My new list
I’ve gone Defender
mad and I’m about to run this list:
2 x Deltas –
TIE/x7 / Stealth Device
Vessary –
TIE/x7 / Stealth Device / Juke
I’d heard someone
say something about the old damage deck being better for generic
pilots so I thought I’d have a look… now I’m going to have to
dig it out and see if I still actually own all the cards!
 |
| Both full decks side by side |
Note: from now on,
I’ll refer to the deck that you get in the original core set as the
“old deck” and the deck that comes in the TFA core set as the
“new deck”
The first thing to
look at when comparing new and old decks is the cards that have no
change to them like Direct Hit! and the cards that only have
slight changes in the wording of the cards, for example, Thurst
Control Fire which has had a one word alteration to clarify some
timing issues.
Old deck - Direct
Hit!: (Ship) This card counts as 2 damage against your hull.
New deck - Direct
Hit!: (Ship) This card counts as 2 damage against your hull.
Old deck - Thrust
Control Fire: (Ship) Immediately receive 1 stress token. Then flip
this card facedown.
New deck - Thrust
Control Fire: (Ship) Receive 1 stress token. Then flip this card
facedown.
As the slight change
is only going to affect anything in a very small amount of cases, for
the purpose of this, article, I will count them as being the same
thing.
So then, these cards
have stayed the same:
 |
| Console Fire |
 |
| Damaged Engine |
 |
| Direct Hit! |
 |
| Thrust Control Fire |
 |
| Damaged Cockpit |
 |
| Stunned Pilot |
So 6 out of the full
14 different cards in the deck are (near enough) exactly the same.
This is a good start.
Clearing the
crits with dice
There seems to be a trend in the new damage deck for making crits
easier to cancel.
Damaged Sensor Array and Structural Damage can both be cancelled by
rolling an attack dice, if you roll a hit, the crits are cancelled.
The difference comes when that dice roll comes up as a crit. If you
are playing with the old deck, the crit stays, if you are playing
with the new deck, flip that crit down!
Essentially that means if you are playing with the new deck, you have
a 50% chance of clearing the crit, however if you are playing with
the old deck, you only have a 37.5% chance of clearing the crit.
This is just a fact of the decks and doesn’t really come down to
what list you are playing.
Score one for the new deck!
 |
| Damaged Sensor Array |
 |
| Structural Damage |
Minors into
Majors (shit got real!)
Two cards have been “upgraded” from minor effects in the old deck
to major effects in the new deck. These are Minor Explosion and Minor
Hull Breach (in the old deck) which changed to Major Explosion and
Major Hull Breach (in the new deck). Let’s have a look at the
difference.
 |
| Minor Explosion / Major Explosion |
Straight up, this is a score for the old deck, obviously you would
prefer to take a normal damage, over another crit, right?
Pretty much, but if you are playing certain lists, this makes no
difference at all. A-wings, Z95s, Attack Shuttles, M3-As, TIE Adv.
Prototypes, Phantoms and E-wings have 2 hull so if you take a crit
and it comes up Minor/Major Explosion, it doesn’t matter if the
subsequent damage is a hit or a crit, you roll a red dice and if it
comes up a hit, dat ship go boom! This is an important consideration
if you are playing a list where ALL your ships only have two hull,
for example a Z swarm or an A-wing swarm.
 |
| Minor Hull Breach / Major Hull Breach |
Well… these are different, maybe they deserved a more different
name? Who knows, anyway, you can’t really compare them. This really
IS list dependent.
If you are running an A-wing swarm, you really don’t care about
Major Hull Breach because the next hit you get is going to kill you
anyway, whether it’s a crit or not HOWEVER these swarm type lists
tend to K-turn a lot so you don’t really want Minor Hull Breach.
If you are running Defenders, you can pretty much go whole games
without ever doing a red maneuver (love those white K-turns) so Minor
Hull Breach is a “good” crit for this ship BUT if you’ve still
got three hull left, get Major Hull Breach then the next damage turns
out to be a Direct Hit! that is bad times.
Two different lists, two different preferences.
Cards that have
been replaced
Some cards from the old deck have been completely replaced by new,
different cards in the new deck.
 |
| Munitions Failure is replaced by Loose Stabilizer |
 |
| Injured Pilot is replaced by Shaken Pilot |
Well, you can kind of see the reason for these. Imagine PTL Soontir
getting Injured Pilot! No more PTL AND no more stress/focus
shenanigans… that’s a well dead Soontir.
Now imagine a Delta Defender getting Injured Pilot… no change
whatsoever.
So it’s a balance thing, the new damage deck was brought in to
level the playing field, in that previous example, using the new deck
instead would have got both ships a Shaken Pilot crit, more rough for
the Defender and less rough for Soontir.
You could extrapolate similar findings with the Munitions Failure /
Loose Stabilizer crit if you looked at a HWK with TLT and a base
X-wing. With Munitions Failure, your HWK would be totally useless for
the rest of the game but the X-wing would be unchanged, whereas with
Loose stabilizer, both ships are equally inconvenienced.
I think it’s worth stating that this part of the new deck benefits
the game, as a whole, massively. (who wants to win against a nerfed
Soontir, anyway!) BUT it doesn’t mean that if you are working on a
list by list basis, the new deck is unquestionably better. Do some
thinking!
Other honorable
mentions
So there are two other crits which deserve a mention.
 |
| Blinded Pilot |
Blinded pilot went through a change, whereby in the old deck, you had
to wait for the opportunity to attack another ship (ie. have another
ship in range and in arc and then declare that ship as the target of
your blinded attack) before the crit would clear. In the new deck,
the player just has to wait for the next time it would be that ship’s
turn to attack, then the crit clears.
The old deck is fine if you are a turret but what if you are an arc
dodger, you effectively have to come around for another pass JUST to
clear the crit. Bad times!
 |
| Weapon Malfunction and Weapons Failure |
This change was due to ships carrying cannons or turrets not being
affected by Weapons Malfunction as it only nerfs your PRIMARY weapon
value. (Dash’s favourite crit). Weapons failure effects all ships
equally.
So, if you have a squad that uses just secondary weapon turrets, you would chose the
old deck, right? Nope, because what happens if you get the Munitions
Failure crit? One of your scary 3 dice TLT Y-wings becomes a 2 dice
ship that only gets to fire once AND has to have his target in arc!
MEGA NERF!
That was
interesting... Now stop rambling and tell me which deck to use!
So that’s all the crits discussed, let’s look at a few lists and
see what which would be the best for that list.
I have analyzed the effectiveness of each damage deck over three
lists. I’ve tried to use lists that I have a fair amount of
experience playing with or playing against. To that end, I’ll look
at my old Imperial list with Vader, Omega Leader and Redline, my new
Defender list with Vessary and two Deltas and finally the 5 A-wing
crack swarm that Joel has been playing for a while (and consequently,
I have played against a lot!)
As some things will benefit or handicap a list more than other, I
have tried to set up a scoring system ranging from -3 (Soontir
getting an Injured Pilot crit. ie. useless Soontir) to +3
(Delta Defender getting an Injured Pilot crit. ie. no change
whatsoever) It’s obviously VERY subjective so only here as a
general guideline and to help you make your own decisions.
Also, I’m going to completely disregard Console Fire, Damaged
Engine, Direct Hit!, Thrust Control Fire, Damaged Cockpit and
Stunned Pilot as they are exactly the same in the old and new
decks (as stated before).
A-wing crack
swarm
 |
| Joel's A-wing crack swarm |
5 x Green Squadron Pilot – A-wing test pilot / Chardan /
Adaptibility / Autothrusters / Crackshot
So let’s go down the list.
Damaged Sensor Array and Structural Damage – the new deck
wins on both of these because of it’s slightly easier method of
clearing these crits. As there is only a 12.5% difference I’ve only
awarded the new deck +1 for each crit and the old deck -1 for each.
Old deck: - 2 points
New deck: + 2 points
Minor/Major Explosion – it
matters not! Having only 2 hit points means that whether that next
incoming damage is a hit or a crit, that ship = dead! No points for
either deck here then.
Old deck: - 2 points
New deck: + 2 points
Minor/Major Hull Breach – Major Hull Breach
is negated (once again) by the 2 hull points. Who cares if the next
hit is a crit or not when it will kill you regardless. I shall award
the new deck + 3 for that!
Minor Hull Breach however, will inconvenience this list a fair
bit. The swarm likes to K-turn a fair bit in my experience and having
to roll an attack dice every time you do that and possibly blow the
ship up is not so good! Therefore, I will award the old deck a – 2
Old deck: - 4 points
New deck: + 5 points
Munitions Failure and Loose
Stabilizer – Munitions failure
is a dream crit for these A-wings. They have nothing to discard. + 3
for the old deck there!
Loose Stabilizer is a bit of
an arse for the A-wings though, they
really rely on their agility to get out of tight situations. - 2 for
the new deck.
Old deck: - 1 point
New deck: + 3 points
Weapon Malfunction and
Weapons Failure – No
difference here as the A-wings only use their
primary weapons. No points!
Old deck: - 1 point
New deck: + 3 points
Blinded Pilot – the new
deck is always going to get my vote on this, often it doesn’t make
too much difference though, especially to a swarm so I give the old
deck – 1 and the new deck + 1.
Old deck: - 2 points
New deck: + 4 points
Injured Pilot and Shaken
Pilot – Injured Pilot will
pretty much do nothing to the A-Wings as they don’t have an
in-built pilot ability, Adaptibility is set at the beginning of the
game and they will almost always have spent their Crackshot by the
time they get down to hull. + 2 points (not the full +
3 in case they haven’t
spent Crackshot)
Shaken Pilot could cause a
bit of an annoyance, depending on the situation. Not being able
to do a straight maneuver for the one turn where you expect to get a
block can be frustrating. - 1
Old deck: 0 points
New deck: 3 points
So the new deck comes out on top for this list. Let’s see about
those Defenders!
Defenders of The
Universe
 |
| Be afraid! Here come the Defenders of the Universe! |
Vessary – TIE/x7 / Stealth Device / Juke
2 x Delta Squadron Pilots – TIE/x7 / Stealth Device
Damaged Sensor Array and Structural Damage – same as with
all lists, the new deck wins this (but not by much).
Old deck: - 2 points
New deck: + 2 points
Minor/Major Explosion –
Well, getting a Major
Explosion, then rolling a hit
and pulling a Direct Hit!
is the worst thing in the world on a three hull ship (well, maybe not, but still…) The
old deck definitely wins this one! Old deck + 2, new deck – 2.
Old deck: 0 points
New deck: 0 points
Minor/Major Hull Breach – Any
mechanic that will net you extra crits (such as Major Hull
Breach) is bad. Not the worst
thing because the Defenders only have 3 hull so as long as you don’t
get this crit on the very first point of hull damage, it isn’t
worth anything. Not terrible but could be bad! - 1 for the new deck.
The
maneuvers I tend to use on my /x7 Defenders are straights (all
greens), 3 turns and banks (all whites) and that lovely, white 4
K-turn. Losing the ability to safely do any red maneuvers because
of Minor Hull Breach…
not much of a bother at all! + 2 to the old deck!
Old deck: + 2
New deck: - 1
Munitions Failure and Loose
Stabilizer – Munitions
Failure, I wish all (my) crits
were like this! Nothing to discard so no change here. The full + 3
points for the old deck!
Loose Stabilizer? I spent 3 extra points getting my agility to
4 and now it’s gone all the way down to 2??? Not what I’d want. -
2 for the new deck.
Old deck: + 5
New deck: - 3
Weapon Malfunction and
Weapons Failure – And
again, no difference here, us modern Defenders don’t use any
secondary weapons! Nil points for either side!
Old deck: + 5
New deck: -3
Blinded Pilot –bad times
for the old deck here. Not being able to clear this crit by running
away, then coming back again would be very annoying! Old deck – 1,
new deck + 1.
Old deck: + 4
New deck: - 2
Injured Pilot and Shaken
Pilot – Well, this is actually
a pretty difficult one. Injured Pilot
won’t have any effect on my Deltas but on Vessary it will strip his
ability AND Juke. Bad times. That
said, it does only have the potential to affect a third of my list.
Old deck gets a – 1.
Shaken pilot is also awkward
to analyse for this list. I
don’t often do straight maneuvers when in the thick of a dogfight
(it’s worth mentioning that the 4-K is NOT treated as a straight)
I’m usually either turning or K-ing. It could still be annoying
though. I think the new deck gets a – 1 for this as well.
Old deck: + 3
New deck: - 3
So by a rather large margin of 6 points the old deck wins!
Lots ‘O’
Locks
 |
| Lots 'O' Locks |
The previous two have been fairly easy to analyse because they
comprise the same ships. This one is going to be awkward but let’s
see how we go...
Vader – VI / Engine / Title / ATC
Omega Leader – Juke / Comms Relay
Redline – Plasmas / Clusters / FCS / Guidance Chips / Extra
Munitions
Damaged Sensor Array and Structural Damage – same as with
all lists, the new deck wins this again.
Old deck: - 2 points
New deck: + 2 points
Minor/Major Explosion – And
again, getting a Major
Explosion, then rolling a hit
and pulling a Direct Hit! =
bad! The old deck definitely
wins this one! Old deck + 2, new deck – 2.
Old deck: 0 points
New deck: 0 points
Minor/Major Hull Breach – As
with the last list, more crits is bad, but Vader and Omega Leader
only having three hull each makes this not so bad. Redline, however,
could end up with 6 crits from the new deck!!! Fairly bad, - 2 for
the new deck.
Minor Hull Breach however, will also have a fair bit of an impact on
all the ships in this list. I K-turn with all these ships, Redline
included! Who needs actions when you’ve got target locks AND
guidance chips? More badness – 2 for the old deck.
Old deck: - 2 points
New deck: - 2 points
Munitions Failure and Loose
Stabilizer – Munitions Failure
on Redline is a bit rubbish as you have to discard a missile or torp
BUT it’s not as bad as something like Dash losing his HLC. It
doesn’t have any effect on Vader or Omega Leader, so that’s good.
- 1 for the old deck.
Loose Stabilizer is a bit
more of a kicker for any of these ships, Omega and Vader because they
rely on those greens to keep them alive and going down to no green
dice on Redline just feels
wrong! - 2 for the new deck.
Old deck: - 3 points
New deck: - 4 points
Weapon Malfunction and
Weapons Failure – Well,
the only difference is that if you are using the old deck and Redline
gets this crit, his torp and missile shots aren’t nerfed. Not much
change, I know but it still edges the old damage deck in front for
this one. - 2 for the old and – 3 for the new.
Old deck: - 5 points
New deck: - 7 points
Blinded Pilot – Bad
times for the old deck here. These
ships are arc dodgers (well, two of them, anyway) and won’t have
shots every turn. This makes the old damage deck worse for this list
than most. Old deck – 2,
new deck + 1.
Old
deck: - 7 points
New deck: - 6 points
Injured Pilot and Shaken
Pilot – Injured Pilot is awful
for this list! Redline’s tactics hinge on getting 2 target locks,
Vader is great with his 2 actions and Omega Leader without Juke and
her ability is just a high PS TIE F/O. Very bad times! - 3 for the
old deck!
Shaken pilot could be bad but then again, it’s only one turn and
then it gets flipped. Not great but not terrible. - 1 for the new
deck.
Old deck: - 10
New deck: - 7
The new deck, once again comes out on top here but the way my scoring
has turned out, it really shows how much crits in general hurt named
pilots more than generics.
So those are my findings, they are obviously subjective but the point
I’m trying to get across is that you should try and do a bit of
critical analysis on which deck is best for your list.
I’m going to dig out my old deck and give it a try on my Defenders
of the Universe list!
Redd XIII signing off.
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