So, have the imperials stopped crying over the Rebel's ability to do a white K turn now? And R2-D3 handing stress like candy? And having the most torpedo ships for those flechette?

Now that Wingman has been announced, its purpose is clearly to allow you to continue using PTL on one ship and support it with Wingman. Or run dual wingman's and then you can infinitely white K turn without taking any damage - not to mention that the Defender has a white K turn anyways.

So, are the Imperial players ready to admit that they jumped off the deep end a little too quickly when they thought that FFG was breaking the game with rebel aces and the Transport X wing pilots and the W4 rebels that they announced?

And think - they haven't even spoiled the W4 Imperials yet!

Ha, I wish. The whining has only stopped because the Rebel Aces thread has been hijacked.

Never was whining, react, adapt and destroy the Rebel Scum. I am looking forward to running a combo of a named Defender and two named Interceptors. Now wingman is spoiled I am looking forwards to it even more :-)

I never moaned. I had a sneaking suspicion that W4 would be an imperial wave, and welcomed the addition of an expansion after W4 that addressed the cost issues in the game and added a few more pilots.

Bring on Keyan, I'll show him how a real pilot does his job.

Wingman may be perfect for Turr Phennir to fly along side PTL Soontir, or having some Black TIEs accompany my EH or PTLing Firesprays, or A-Wing wingman with the EH Falcon.

That being said, I can't wait until someone has a wingman near Keyan or Ibtisam and accidentally remove their bonus-giving stress. It will be LOLs.

Being able to effectively White K every turn (even with action loss) is HUGE. The options it opens up especially on the highly maneuverable Int (and the equally maneuverable Defender when you can dump stress from hard turns) is crazy good.

How many people have also figured out that if you add an Engine upgrade to a Defender you can White 4K and then change angle of attack?

Eat this you B-Wing scum....

Being able to effectively White K every turn (even with action loss) is HUGE. The options it opens up especially on the highly maneuverable Int (and the equally maneuverable Defender when you can dump stress from hard turns) is crazy good.

How many people have also figured out that if you add an Engine upgrade to a Defender you can White 4K and then change angle of attack?

Eat this you B-Wing scum....

Might be a good use for Daredevil as well...... I'll have to get my ships out and see where a ship ends up after doing a white 4k then a 1 hard turn

Being able to effectively White K every turn (even with action loss) is HUGE. The options it opens up especially on the highly maneuverable Int (and the equally maneuverable Defender when you can dump stress from hard turns) is crazy good.

How many people have also figured out that if you add an Engine upgrade to a Defender you can White 4K and then change angle of attack?

Eat this you B-Wing scum....

Actually, I think it makes B-Wings better. Look at this upgrade to Biggs Walks the Dogs:

Biggs w/ R2-D6 and Wingman (28)

Cracken w/ Wingman (21)

Blue Squadron w/ Advanced Sensors (25)

Blue Squadron w/ Advanced Sensors (25)

TOTAL: 99 points

You lose one attack die (switching Rookie to Cracken) but gain stressless B-Wings and a free action thanks to Cracken's ability.

So, are the Imperial players ready to admit that they jumped off the deep end a little too quickly...

I really hope so.

(I still find the idea that there are "Imperial players" and "Rebel players" really strange.)

So are we going to get one of these for the next time something everyone thinks is awesome has a later reveal that makes it not so awesome, too?

We can only ever evaluate anything based on what we currently see. If you're going to make snide comments at people concerned over the current previews when those previews have a mitigating factor later, you should be equally snide about people who are excited about previews when THOSE previews turn out to have a mitigating factor later.

Honestly, most of the people on the other side of the recent debates have been proven just as wrong. The primary counterargument against people like me who were concerned over the massive stress-infliction abilities recently previewed was not "There will be something coming to help mitigate it", it was "It's all fine, you just have to fly a little smarter and it will all still work just fine." Well, it seems relatively obvious at this point that there was something needed to counteract it. Getting obnoxiously triumphal over an argument few people were making seems a bit tacky. Well, using QQ in anything is tacky and pretty much last century in internet time... but still.

I'm not sure I love the idea of having to clutter a build with Wingmen just to keep from getting hosed by R3-A2, but it's at least a broadly-useful card.

I have never been one to dive either way on issues. I like what wave 4 brings to the table for both sides, same for all the other releases.

Do you have to think new strategies up? Sure.

Is that bad? Nope.

Do I think Wave 4 makes my beloved Ints much better? Oh yes.

Does it make other ships better? Oh yes.

Do I love this game in all its facets? Well hell yes

So are we going to get one of these for the next time something everyone thinks is awesome has a later reveal that makes it not so awesome, too?

We can only ever evaluate anything based on what we currently see. If you're going to make snide comments at people concerned over the current previews when those previews have a mitigating factor later, you should be equally snide about people who are excited about previews when THOSE previews turn out to have a mitigating factor later.

Honestly, most of the people on the other side of the recent debates have been proven just as wrong. The primary counterargument against people like me who were concerned over the massive stress-infliction abilities recently previewed was not "There will be something coming to help mitigate it", it was "It's all fine, you just have to fly a little smarter and it will all still work just fine." Well, it seems relatively obvious at this point that there was something needed to counteract it. Getting obnoxiously triumphal over an argument few people were making seems a bit tacky. Well, using QQ in anything is tacky and pretty much last century in internet time... but still.

I'm not sure I love the idea of having to clutter a build with Wingmen just to keep from getting hosed by R3-A2, but it's at least a broadly-useful card.

Haha, thus half the point of using QQ If you look back in throughout all of the W4 and Transport announcements, you'll see that I said that stress will be a major part of playing the game, and it's an aspect that's being developed, just as the force phase of the LCG is currently being developed. So while I'll agree I'm being tacky by calling it all out in a snarky way, it was my way of pointing out that FFG still knows what they're doing and still have surprises in store.

We should not judge a preview based on the current meta. That was the point of my message. And as for not being excited about running Wingmen all over the place, we still dont' know what Decoy does, or Predator, or any of the imp pilots, etc. Wingman is just one way to develop the stress aspect of the game.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We should not judge a preview based on the current meta. That was the point of my message. And as for not being excited about running Wingmen all over the place, we still dont' know what Decoy does, or Predator, or any of the imp pilots, etc. Wingman is just one way to develop the stress aspect of the game.

There's at least a minor point here that there are several months between the arrival of the Rebels' new stress-inflicting mechanism and the glory that is Wingman.

I do disagree about not judging previews based on the current meta. That's all we CAN judge them on, at least if we're going to actually discuss the previews.

It's also worth pointing out that the track record for trusting FFG is actually somewhat spotty. Somewhere around half the ships in the game see limited use; half the pilots of the "good" ships rarely see use. Balance and miscostings abound. They haven't been disastrous for the most part, even if I am utterly sick of B-wings at this point, but they've hardly been perfect. So "Trust them, they know what they're doing" is a YMMV sort of statement.

(I still find the idea that there are "Imperial players" and "Rebel players" really strange.)

+100

<snip>

Somewhere around half the ships in the game see limited use; half the pilots of the "good" ships rarely see use. Balance and miscostings abound. They haven't been disastrous for the most part, even if I am utterly sick of B-wings at this point, but they've hardly been perfect. So "Trust them, they know what they're doing" is a YMMV sort of statement.

You're right. I almost never use a B-Wing in my Rebel lists, I only rarely fly the basic TIE fighter and I don't believe I've ever flown the YT-1300 at all despite having it ever since it was released. Obviously those ships are all not of any use to anyone. FFG's design is entirely broken because I don't play it like everyone else does.

</sarcasm>

Judging impacts on the current environment is fine for everything that releases up till Wave 4. My issue with the Rebel Aces complaints, is that things are going to be completely different when the Rebel Aces releases. Nothing has quite as much impact as a full 4 ship Wave. Until we know more, it is tough to guess. Sure, the new A-wing swarm seems appealing, but Wave 4 is looking to make to hurt the Swarm and Weenie spamming lists. Some fascinating dynamics are coming, and I look forward to seeing how well received the Rebel Aces are received post Wave 4.

<snip>

Somewhere around half the ships in the game see limited use; half the pilots of the "good" ships rarely see use. Balance and miscostings abound. They haven't been disastrous for the most part, even if I am utterly sick of B-wings at this point, but they've hardly been perfect. So "Trust them, they know what they're doing" is a YMMV sort of statement.

You're right. I almost never use a B-Wing in my Rebel lists, I only rarely fly the basic TIE fighter and I don't believe I've ever flown the YT-1300 at all despite having it ever since it was released. Obviously those ships are all not of any use to anyone. FFG's design is entirely broken because I don't play it like everyone else does.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/limited?s=t

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/rarely?s=t

Those might help you out a bit.

<snip>

Somewhere around half the ships in the game see limited use; half the pilots of the "good" ships rarely see use. Balance and miscostings abound. They haven't been disastrous for the most part, even if I am utterly sick of B-wings at this point, but they've hardly been perfect. So "Trust them, they know what they're doing" is a YMMV sort of statement.

You're right. I almost never use a B-Wing in my Rebel lists, I only rarely fly the basic TIE fighter and I don't believe I've ever flown the YT-1300 at all despite having it ever since it was released. Obviously those ships are all not of any use to anyone. FFG's design is entirely broken because I don't play it like everyone else does.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/limited?s=t

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/rarely?s=t

Those might help you out a bit.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/sense+of+humour

And this may help you out a bit too.

You're right - straw man arguments which use low-minded sarcasm to attack something that was never said are absolutely HI-larious, especially when you throw in I AM NOT AN ANECDOTE! "logic".

All you have to do is take a look at the store champs list to see that everything has been used. Some obviously more than others, but that's to be expected - you primary ships (X, B, YT, /ln, /sa, FS) are going to not be in more builds, but are going to be of greater quantity in the builds that have the support ships. If we look at rebels, and say that each build will have 1 support ship, then we're looking at a 3:1 X B YT vs Y A HWK. That ratio is based on the standard 4 ship squad having at most 1 support ship. 123:32 is the actual ratio, which is a 3.84:1 ratio. And within the two roles, X vs. B is almost equal, while YT is at 1/3, which makes sense because it's twice the points.

On the Imperial side, first you have to consider a /ln half a ship due to its point value and usefulness on the field. Then we'd look at /ln, /sa, FS as the primary ships, giving us a total of 80. And the supports total 20, a 4:1 ratio. This again doesn't seem too unreasonable. One thing I forgot to say above is that you're unlikely to ever get to the 3:1 since you'll see more squads with 4:0 ratios than you'll ever see 2:2 or 1:3 ratios.

So then if you look at the primary ships on the imp side, you'll see that bombers aren't stacking up quite as well as /ln and FS. This is likely due to the idea that ordnance is too expensive. Rebel Aces and Transport X wings are introducing new missiles/torps that will make the bombers more competitive.

As for secondary ships, I know plenty of people (stone37 comes to mind) swear by the usefulness of the HWK, but it has to fit their play style. Likewise for the shuttle (The_brown_bomber & Sable). I gotta admit I'm a little surprised to see how few of these are on the list. The Y wing is well represented, actually surpassing the YT (though one could make the arguement that the YT and FS should be considered 2 ships like the /ln is considered half a ship), and the Interceptor is well represented, as I would expect. For those two ships, it looks like 1/3 lists have one of them... Not bad representation for a support ship.

Which leaves the A wing and the x1. The A wing is being boosted in Rebel Aces, which should help its representation. And no one will disagree that the x1 doesn't balance out well and needs help.

So, in conclusion, FFG has done a brilliant job balancing all of the ships, and that balance has continued throughout the meta. With the exception of the x1, Wave 1 ships are just as relevant today as they were during W1 and have not been overshadowed or outclassed by W2 and W3 stuff. Ergo, FFG has done a great job balancing the game, and I put my trust in them to continue to released balanced expansions.

my only gripe is that if i want wingman and munitions failsafe for my Imperials then i'm going to have to buy Headhunters and i really didn't want to because it feels too much like a Rebel Tie.

This is a very deep rabbit hole we could go down, but I'd make two points:

1. Looking only at #1 spots is a very skewed list.

2. A big part of the point here is not only ships, but pilots. Even with the very popular B-wing, Ten Numb appears once, and Ibby not at all. If you count use by pilots, the numbers fall dramatically.

Honestly, we just have different evaluations, I think. You look at a list that has three ships making up 50% of the use, and call it well-balanced. I don't, even before you add the pilot considerations.

So, are the Imperial players ready to admit that they jumped off the deep end a little too quickly...

I really hope so.(I still find the idea that there are "Imperial players" and "Rebel players" really strange.)

Lol, I find it rather appealing!

Imperial Navy all the way!

Nah, we can QQ over the fact that Blount is a serious threat to traditional TIE Swarms at only what, 22 points?