Talk:Ion Tokens/@comment-93.82.10.7-20180804125450/@comment-454133-20180804192827

Yes, you can walk someone off the table with ion cannons, though it's not a common strategy because it doesn't work against all fleets (including stuff popular in the meta). Large ships are less susceptible to this because they require 2 ion tokens to ionize, as are agile ships that can dodge the ion attacks. Small low-agility ships like B-Wings are the most vulnerable.

When things work well for them, a team of 4 Y-Wings could fly next to or behind your ships, keeping them ionized while staying out of arc. Then they can slowly kill you with their shots or try to walk you off the table. However this takes time and they're fully invested in this strategy. Very agile ships and large ships give them trouble, as will bad luck; if ionizing isn't working well enough against you, they may be doomed.

When you see your foe fielding ion cannons keep that in mind when flying your ships. Ionized moves are always in a straight line. If they ionize you while you're pointing at a nearby table edge, you're in danger (likewise when there's an asteroid in front of you, but that's less deadly). If they ionize you while you're far away from the table edge ahead of you, that gives you lots of time. If they miss and fail to keep you ionized, you can get yourself turned around and they have to start over.

While they're focusing on some of your team, other teammates should be shooting the ion users to try to disable or kill them. The more firepower you can bring on each ship to destroy it, the more you cut their ability to control you. Ion teams tend to be relatively weak (e.g. 4 ion turret y-wings), though the Worlds IG-88B team is pretty scary (and shouldn't be played in casual play, ever).

You can also boost to change your direction, evade to try to force them to miss, etc. Though if you become stressed you could be in extra trouble, losing actions entirely while you're ionized and unable to clear your stress. If the ionizers are allowed to outnumber a ship then they can control it quite successfully (eventually pushing a shot past its defenses), but if you focus your fire and start breaking down their numbers, you can break their team's strategy.

In Second Edition ionizing has become both harder and easier. You have to have more than 1 hit/crit to ionize the target, but you can also deal multiple ion tokens with one shot (so ionizing low-agility medium and large ships is easier). The ionized 1 straight maneuver is also blue now, so you don't stay stressed. It will be interesting to see if ion strategies work well.