I have been doing what I call the Good the bad and the ugly series and have enjoyed them. In the I talk about cards we don't see to often and break them into the good, bad, and ugly categories. I generally break down why they are in that category, but I wanted to dive a little deep particularly for the cards in the bad category as to how they could eventually become good cards. Sometimes I think well if only they did this or it did this or if we had this kind of ship or this upgrade card etc. So I just want to look at some cards that don’t see play currently. FFG is not really in the habit of errata to make things better mostly just to nerf, so we will try to stay away from that as well. First card up on my list is Sensor Team.
So I gave this card some crap in one of my good the bad and ugly titles and it deserved it is a bad card even though I had some success with it when paired with Quad Turbolaser Cannons and in one other case that I will get to, but even then it was just kind of meh; so what could be done? Well let’s look at when this card came out wave 1, it came out in the early stages of the game. I believe the card was designed when accuracies where a little overvalued, or where more valuable it was probably both.
The ships out at that time where the Nebulon-B, CR-90, AF MK II, GSD, and VSD. ECM was also out at this point but only the AF MK II, and the CR-90 could take it. Let’s say we put the Sensor Team on a VSD I and we make a close range attack, we get a double a black and 4 regular hits and blank that’s 6 damage now let’s say we are attacking a CR-90 with our 6 damage the CR-90 takes two on the defending hull zone then redirects two and takes two inside. Now if we had sensor teams we drop our blank get an accuracy to lock up the redirect so we are down to 5 damage but they can’t use the redirect that’s 2 on this shields and 3 inside we did more internal damage, however x17 where out at this time and could do the same thing for us in this scenario.
so let’s say we were attacking an AF MK II we still have our six damage and one blank, and let’s say we are attacking the side of the AF 6 damage it spends its redirect that is 4 to the front 2 on the side no inside damage now we sensor teams 5 damage and for whatever reason they don’t spend their brace we get 2 damage though now with X17 6 damage 1 to the front 3 to the side 2 damage to the hull same a senor teams so we are seeing the pattern x17 do the same thing when targeting the redirects of a ship. so lets look at targeting a brace 6 damage on the AF down to 5 lock up the brace 4 go to the front and 1 on the side, but we did not have the accuracy its 6 damage brace to 3, 3 on the front by dropping down to 5 damage and getting the accuracy we have effectively gained 2 damage meaning 2 more damage “stuck” to the ship opposed to if we just kept the 6 damage, so I would consider that worth it. But when you introduce EMC to the equation, we get the same result as if we had not used sensor teams, so what’s the point, and that is the problem.
If ECM did not exist this card might actually see a little bit of playtime, it would be competing with other accuracy generation tech, but it would have its place. If ECM did not exist though would accuracy generation tech be too powerful? Is ECMs too powerful currently in the game? These are all questions I have asked myself and I think the answer to both is yes. Without ECMs Defense tokens would feel largely meaningless, but because of ECMs accuracies in the game currently largely feel meaningless. So we are really left with two options to help bring this card back it would be a slight nerf to ECMs to still keep accuracy generation tech in check, but not so much that accuracy tech feels worthless, or add in another card that outperforms ECMs in its roll.
ECMs roll is to keep large amounts of damage off of a ship so it can survive the big attack that it is going to take. Its really only seen on large ships but occasionally smaller ships, but with how prevalent Large ships are I would say it is nearly in every list. So how do we make a card that can challenge ECMs but not be completely power creep, it needs flexibility. This is the best thing I could come up with,
Defensive Matrix:
Medium and larger ships only
"in the spend defense token step you may discard this card to spend any token targeted by an accuracy. During the suffer damage step of combat if you have this card equipped you may reduce the amount of damage you suffer by 1 to a minimum of 1."
So this idea gives you a onetime ECM effect for the big turns and helps keep damage off as long as you don’t discard it. Yes its pretty powerful and it even steps on the toes of EWS a bit, but I am at an impasse on how to make a card that can challenge ECM otherwise the only other idea I have is,
Advanced Defensive System:
"at the start of the first round you may add a copy of any defense token that you only have one copy of to your defense token pool."
This way accuracies are still good but you need 2 to lock down the token you want to, but that just make ECM a guaranteed ability to spend the token you want to and I’m all about guarantees. So I think the first card has the better chance of getting used over ECM, while still giving ECM its place in that it is only an exhaust and not a discard.
The only other way I see this card seeing the light of day is the nerf of making ECM a discard effect. That way you use your accuracy tech Senor teams in this case and get rid of that defensive upgrade and your upgrade will work the rest of the game.
I said we would not go to deep into buffing the card itself as FFG to my knowledge has never done that but what would have to change about the card itself without any changes to ECM. Well a lot it takes up the weapons team slot a fairly valuable slot. If it did not get rid of a die that would help. if it was an exhaust to add a die set to an accuracy that would be very good especially if the die was blue long rage leading shots on demand seams good to me. Though the issue with accuracies just being a little lack luster is still there I mean it’s possible if it did not have to take away a dice it might be worth it and it if added a die into your pool set to an accuracy it would still be worth it for more dice to reroll or if it was blue to reroll dice at long range, with leading shots.
That’s an example of a few things that I think would need to be changed/happen if Sensor Teams was to ever see play again. Sensor teams also works best of ships with lots of dice that have no turbolaser slot, so more ships like that would also slightly help this card. However at the end of the day for really all accuracy generation tech to see more play ether A) flottilas need to return to having to be taken off the table for a tabling to happen or B) ECM needs a direct or indirect nerf. As a bonus here is the list that I had the most success with using sensor teams:
Imperial II (120) • Moff Jerjerrod (23) • Strategic Adviser (4) • Gunnery Team (7) • Electronic Countermeasures (7) • Leading Shots (4) • Quad Battery Turrets (5) • Chimaera (4) • Entrapment Formation! (5) = 179 Points
Raider I (44) • Sensor Team (5) • External Racks (3) = 52 Points
Raider I (44) • Sensor Team (5) • External Racks (3) = 52 Points
Gozanti Cruisers (23) • Comms Net (2) = 25 Points
Gozanti Cruisers (23) • Comms Net (2) = 25 Points
Squadrons: • Ciena Ree (17) • Valen Rudor (13) • Gamma Squadron (10) • TIE Bomber Squadron (9) = 49 Points
Total Points: 382
Basically the Idea is to use Entrapment formation to jump the raiders from speed 1 up to 3 with a dial, or all the way up to 4 with dial+token to pounce on a target Ozzle style. Then switch to IF with the Chimaera title to help the raider's damage then with a con fire dial and ex-racks unload as much damage as I can on a ship and senor teams an accuracy to lock down tokens. this paired with the long range damage of the ISD the ship would generally die after the raider delivered its payload, or force larger ships to spend ECMs now or take all that damage knowing my ISD will be following up that shot so I would usually get large amounts of damage to stick ether way, but with only IF to help damage output it was still possible to wiff and that was always upsetting, but it works most of the time, so its not terrible, but would taking OE in place of sensor teams and just con fire in a blue to try and get the accuracy be better maybe ether way only one aspect of the list will work properly, and I think the guaranteed accuracy with sensor teams is a solid choice as you will probably have at least 1 blank with so many dice, but OE would make me have great damage output so I think it’s a tougher call than expected, because between the sensor teamed Raider and an ISD-II its going to be taking quite the hit one way or the other.
An argument for Intel Officer and OE on the raiders dropping the Chimaera title and just taking Ozzle as the commander is a valid point. Then without the guaranteed accuracy I wont be able to kill small ships out right, but just fishing for the accuracy might work, I think statistically it would just be better to take sensor teams as with five blacks I average 5 damage drop one blue for the guaranteed accuracy otherwise if I take OE and con fire in a blue for 3 blues I will generate an average of .75 accuracies so I think Sensor teams might be the right call for what I want to do with the list. We could just go crazy and take Vader for rerolls as well and just take a Cymoon with EF endless options but until next time have a great week!
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