I kind of enjoy a new form of turret. I agree that turrets will become more common, but I don't see that as necessarily a bad thing. I mean I'd rather see a variety of turrets rather than the same turret over and over again.

You just don't want spam ships that are super worried about turrets. Use whatever ships can punish turrets, and once that threat is removed, then the interceptors (and the like) can shine.

A variety of threats just makes you consider the game beyond a straight up math-wing joust. Redundancy was the name of the game before, and you've gotta have a toolbox now. What's the issue?

There's a counterstrategy to everything.

Falcon, sit at Range 3, focus fire with multiple ships and let its low agility be its downfall. Outmaneuver EPT means no agility at all. VT-49 moreso, it has no agility at all.

HWK/Y-wing: All turret upgrades are Range 1-2. Range 3 arcdodge is still arcdodge. Outmaneuver once again brutalises them.

Nera, her ordnance is one shot and has limited rangebands. Just have the locked ship avoid that band and the forward arc.

Outrider, without the title it's a two dice turret, easily dodged. With the title it's a Range 1 only attack that's easier to dodge than a normal arc, an HLC with a R1 donut hull where it's blind, or an ion turret that caps at one damage a turn.

but when you have a large ship base with what will likely be a good enough maneuver dial and the ability to barrel roll to boot with a hlc strapped to its back..

HLC is Range 2-3. Get any part of your base into Range 1 and it cannot shoot you at all, no matter which angle you approach. HLC Outrider can be outmaneuvered with no more than jousting.

do you honestly mean to tell me that any good player is going to let you have a chance at range 1?

the ability to barrel roll with a large base already puts you outside of range 1 even if they just crashed into you

If they crashed into you they don't get an action. At least make sure ya know the rules before slagging off FFG.

Range 1 is much bigger than it looks as if any part of your base is in R1, you're in that band and they can't shoot you. Plus, if you're flying arcdodge interceptors you should have the pilot skill advantage, removing their ability to adjust to you. If you're trying to play arcdodge with Alpha interceptors no wonder you're having trouble.

I agree, the game is junk because of turrets...quick! Sell me your ships and get out while you still can! /sarcasm

In all seriousness, I quite enjoy the challenge vs turrets, and I don't mind using them, either. If the OP is winning regionals, I honestly don't

understand the resistance to change and adaptation. I guess diversify the list a little bit with a new ship or two with some ept's. Every ship is fun to fly and can be effective.

Everyone, please remember this isn't your game and you don't make the rules. The people designing it earned the right to make it they way they see fit, and you haven't. The cool thing about boardgames is they are easy to house rule. I'm sure there's enough people who would play a wave 1/2 only tourney. That actually sounds kinda fun.

You know I should go much easier on those that want to write the book on the current meta based on initial results. At least they do have those initial results to base their conclusions on. This threads shows some will go even further then that with less.

I agree with most of your opening post (not the insulting part). I love fast maneuverable ships and accept that they pay a premium to be able to do so. I too find it awkward and annoying that more is added to the game to combat this than to enhance it and the one enhancement they have added is a new ship combo that requires them to put more hard counters against this type of gameplay.

I also really dislike the "fly better" comments that always follow. Until very recently there was no way to totally evade arcs all the time (new phantom does it a lot more often than even amazing interceptor pilots), if that is happening to you it is because you're one of the most amazing pilots ever and should easily be winning every serious tournament you're playing in OR, more likely, you're not playing vs. optimized lists or pilots of the same ability level (and it it only happens some time you're just lucky!). I also dislike "just play swarm", "switch sides", and "play more whine less" and other such dismissive comments.

Continuing to make a whole play style less valid really takes away from the game. No one thing is doing that but the sum of these additions has done so to the interceptor (which was just seeing life again), the awing (which is getting just enough to combat this in the form of point reduction AND dual EPT AND great new pilots), the already terrible advanced, and the new phantom (which is not broken as a ship but has some combo issues to be watched). What has been done to enhance or reward arc dodging lately for all ships and all factions outside of the new hotzness of the phantom? Outmaneuver. That's it. And that has some very stiff completion and can't be taken by all ships who could use the bump.

Anyway, I'm with you as a know interceptor enthusiast and someone who has battled this before. Results are already trickling in that the interceptor is dying even faster than pre-aces and the play style that it defined will continue to decline as well.

The sky might not be falling but it's also really really far away from being anywhere close to a sunny day.

My thoughts too.

To Wonder: even if he won, doesn't mean it felt good. =P

I like the OP's idea, good to see adding evade dice, that seems like a good design space to go into.

"so to fix the interceptor to see more play i propose an idea, how about a 0-2 point modification that adds 1,2 or 3 agility to the interceptor that is outside the primary firing arc of the ship that's firing at it and call it something like "advanced thrusters".. hell it doesn't have to be just interceptors, A wings would also benifit from this ability

the idea of this is that these ships are so fast that the turrets have troubles catching up to them and thus why they get the added agility bonus"

--

I just also think that the real complaint here is that turrets and the turret meta really stifle the interceptors, which are somewhat losing a place as a highly maneuverable ship. why do them when the phantom can do better?

I agree with most of your opening post (not the insulting part). I love fast maneuverable ships and accept that they pay a premium to be able to do so. I too find it awkward and annoying that more is added to the game to combat this than to enhance it and the one enhancement they have added is a new ship combo that requires them to put more hard counters against this type of gameplay.

I also really dislike the "fly better" comments that always follow. Until very recently there was no way to totally evade arcs all the time (new phantom does it a lot more often than even amazing interceptor pilots), if that is happening to you it is because you're one of the most amazing pilots ever and should easily be winning every serious tournament you're playing in OR, more likely, you're not playing vs. optimized lists or pilots of the same ability level (and it it only happens some time you're just lucky!). I also dislike "just play swarm", "switch sides", and "play more whine less" and other such dismissive comments.

Continuing to make a whole play style less valid really takes away from the game. No one thing is doing that but the sum of these additions has done so to the interceptor (which was just seeing life again), the awing (which is getting just enough to combat this in the form of point reduction AND dual EPT AND great new pilots), the already terrible advanced, and the new phantom (which is not broken as a ship but has some combo issues to be watched). What has been done to enhance or reward arc dodging lately for all ships and all factions outside of the new hotzness of the phantom? Outmaneuver. That's it. And that has some very stiff completion and can't be taken by all ships who could use the bump.

Anyway, I'm with you as a know interceptor enthusiast and someone who has battled this before. Results are already trickling in that the interceptor is dying even faster than pre-aces and the play style that it defined will continue to decline as well.

The sky might not be falling but it's also really really far away from being anywhere close to a sunny day.

My thoughts too.

To Wonder: even if he won, doesn't mean it felt good. =P

I like the OP's idea, good to see adding evade dice, that seems like a good design space to go into.

"so to fix the interceptor to see more play i propose an idea, how about a 0-2 point modification that adds 1,2 or 3 agility to the interceptor that is outside the primary firing arc of the ship that's firing at it and call it something like "advanced thrusters".. hell it doesn't have to be just interceptors, A wings would also benifit from this ability

the idea of this is that these ships are so fast that the turrets have troubles catching up to them and thus why they get the added agility bonus"

--

I just also think that the real complaint here is that turrets and the turret meta really stifle the interceptors, which are somewhat losing a place as a highly maneuverable ship. why do them when the phantom can do better?

I don't find turrets as big a problem as other seem to. Anything that helps A-wings and Interceptors is good in my book. For 2 pts outside arc boost is a fine idea.

Really enjoying this week's episode of FFG Overreaction Theatre so far. It has drama, angst, incredible amounts of hilarious to watch nerdrage but unfortunately it's lacking a little in character development.

Until very recently there was no way to totally evade arcs all the time (new phantom does it a lot more often than even amazing interceptor pilots)

100% arc evasion is invincibility. Interceptors are good but they aren't broken.

Take a Falcon one on one with an interceptor and you'll probably die, and that's only right. That Falcon costs over 50 points and your interceptors cost around 25ish. Two interceptors working on a Falcon is a fair fight: sometimes the ints will win and sometimes the Falcon will. That's fair: the Falcon is a powerful ship but it sure as hell pays in points for it. The 360-HLC Outrider majorly pays in points for it (twelve points for the title and the cannon!), and it loses its primary as a result: if you close to point blank you have a +1 dice attack it can't shoot back from.

Turret ships are expensive: using them is trading your squad's firepower for range coverage and often poor maneuverability. A squad that doesn't use turrets can pack a lot of firepower.

I just also think that the real complaint here is that turrets and the turret meta really stifle the interceptors, which are somewhat losing a place as a highly maneuverable ship. why do them when the phantom can do better?

More of them. More dice, more hull, but weaker arc dodging ability. The phantom isn't strictly a better interceptor, it's a more extreme interceptor.

The Interceptor has other advantages. It's always at 3 agility and thus while it doesn't have the four dice cloaking provides it can't be caught with its pants down. It sheds stress far more easily, it's an excellent PTL ship and PTL interceptors can easily turtle down with Focus and Evade if they can't slip into that blind spot.

Yes, there are things that give interceptors a headache, but that's not the Interceptor's fault, that's yours for flying interceptors only. One class of ship strategies can be hard countered. However, if we're talking the likes of Soontir Fel, Turr Phennir, Lieutenant Lorrir, Royal Guard Pilot and Carnor Jax here, they're going to have a hard time even if they do hard counter. If you're flying five Avengers then yeah, you're asking to die because interceptors thrive on high pilot skill, but even with turrets it's possible to excel with the TIE interceptor provided you adapt.

Yes, you may have to adapt your interceptor squadrons, but everyone else had their favourite squads hard-countered in Wave 4 by the TIE phantom. TIE swarm, heavy Rebel starfighters like XXBB, they've all had to adapt. Don't be surprised when they have zero sympathy for crying about having to adapt squads and tactics to the new vessels.

Did you miss the outmaneuver EPT upgrade? Make all yer handy dandy interceptors feel like Wedge?

Wave 2 introduced extreme arc dodging with Interceptors, and their counter: the YT-1300. Nothing new to see here.

Isn't the defender kind of the answer to turreted ships? They have 3 hull and shields to chew through with 3 agility dice. Taking them down will be tough. Plus they can use cannons to put a hurt on the low agility turret ships or ion them.

I've found defenders chew up most things including the falcon, and thanks to the k turn they never need to miss a turn of shooting and if you give the outmanouver they'll deny the falcon it's one green dice and remove 3po as a concern.

Expensive but I've had them eat twice their number of fighters without taking a hit back.

The problem isn't that turrets are overpowered.

The problem is that they are boring.

And I don't find this the case at all, I see it as a mind exercise in how to best play your ships. You can't play them like you would against a normal list, instead you must bob and weave between asteroids and keep your range. I personally feel turrets are one of the things that keep me from being bored when playing a interceptor list. But, see that's the thing, not every one finds this to be true, much like you. The concept of boring is all relative to the players that are playing, and their own personal tastes. Because some might *gasp* have fun with turrets!

Last small tournament I went to I faced 3 times Chewbacca/MF/Gunner (twice with C3PO) out of 4 games.

Mind if I think it gets old?

But sure. It just so happens that everyone and their grandmother have a love for specifically the Falcon, usually flown by Chewbacca.

Isn't it weird that these people who 'just love turrets much' never feel the urge to try the Y-wing?

BWHAHAHAHAHAHA, all this talk about interceptor love, and winning a regional. Regional winning list didn't include any interceptors.

Uh huh.

Yeah it'd be easier to argue turrets arnt an issue if we hadn't seen how prolific the falcons become.

Sure people expected the phantom to turn up and dominate but it really wasn't hard to predict rebel lists and decide it wasn't worth including.

Turret ships being the new meta would not be an issue if both sides had access to them, but right now it's just the rebels.

100% arc evasion is invincibility. Interceptors are good but they aren't broken.

Take a Falcon one on one with an interceptor and you'll probably die, and that's only right. That Falcon costs over 50 points and your interceptors cost around 25ish. Two interceptors working on a Falcon is a fair fight: sometimes the ints will win and sometimes the Falcon will. That's fair: the Falcon is a powerful ship but it sure as hell pays in points for it. The 360-HLC Outrider majorly pays in points for it (twelve points for the title and the cannon!), and it loses its primary as a result: if you close to point blank you have a +1 dice attack it can't shoot back from.

A good point, a PtL Royal Guard is a very very good ship for 25 pts and has a lot of survivability if played right. If there was no turrets in the game, it would be even more powerful, but they keep it in check. And if the problem is about the named pilots (Soontir, Turr, etc) being screwed by turrets, how is it very different than Wedge that can be screwed by pretty much any build with lot of firepower? They don't even need to be maneuvrable since a X-Wing is easy to pin. Having to take Biggs is a huge tax to field Wedge.

So yeah, turrets is the counter to highly maneuvrable ship and the more there is, the more likely you are to face them. But at least, by giving more choice, you are less likely to always see the Falcon in every build. Now, it might be the Falcon, the Outrider, the Decimator, Y-Wing. If you don't think you really need it but want to just in case, you now have a B-Wing.

Quite frankly, I don't think the Interceptors were meant to be played as a pure team. They are flanker. Take one or two to flank and build your main force with the rest of your points. There is more and more options in this game. Even a pure Tie Fighter team is less and less viable. Diversity is starting to be more and more important.

To be fair two interceptors is going to be half your squad, so the other half won't be a main force. 40-50 points is a lot of space though. You could easily put a TIE defender or Firespray in that space, or the new VT-49 Decimator.

To be fair two interceptors is going to be half your squad, so the other half won't be a main force. 40-50 points is a lot of space though. You could easily put a TIE defender or Firespray in that space, or the new VT-49 Decimator.

One flanker should be enough, but if you want 2, you could take a Saber with PtL and an Alpha, still leaves you with 58 pts. The Alpha should not be dismiss, it can be a real little bugger when played right. There is other way to play Interceptors than with PtL all the time. Even save you the trouble of all the stress inducing weapons.

Isn't it weird that these people who 'just love turrets much' never feel the urge to try the Y-wing?

I'm not a fan of using the big ships, but I love me my Y-wings. They have helped me win or place in a number of events.

Yeah it'd be easier to argue turrets arnt an issue if we hadn't seen how prolific the falcons become.

Sure people expected the phantom to turn up and dominate but it really wasn't hard to predict rebel lists and decide it wasn't worth including.

Turret ships being the new meta would not be an issue if both sides had access to them, but right now it's just the rebels.

Let's be clear: turret ships are currently NOT the meta. Only the named YT-1300s are . When you see lots of events dominated by Outer Rim Smugglers and HWKs and Y-wings and named Falcons, then we can legitimately start to claim that turrets are a problem. It is the 3-dice, range 1-3 turret ONLY that is consistently on top tables. The Decimator has no agility and the HLC Outrider has a big hole in its firing arc, so whether or not the Decimator and Outrider climb to the top along with the Falcon remains to be seen.

The Falcon's becoming king, and FFG's given us the perfect counterweapon. His name is Rexler.

Told ya the Defender was written off way too soon.

I think we all know that the real gun-barrel we are staring down is the imminent Autoblaster Outrider.

Did you miss the outmaneuver EPT upgrade? Make all yer handy dandy interceptors feel like Wedge?

Wave 2 introduced extreme arc dodging with Interceptors, and their counter: the YT-1300. Nothing new to see here.

if you want an interceptor that doesn't pop like an academy. you need push the limit

I think we all know that the real gun-barrel we are staring down is the imminent Autoblaster Outrider.

Ten extra points of no R2 or R3 attack goodness.

if you want an interceptor that doesn't pop like an academy. you need push the limit

Correct but I'm not seeing the relevance to the topic.

Oh, I'm deadly serious.

Autodasher (Dashblaster? Autorider?) Meta 2015. You heard it here first!

Edit: Let's go with Autorendar. Has a nice ring.

i love interceptors aswell i own 12 ;P and yes i do not like turrets aswell but i think we will still overcome this ^^

imperial players are already playin at the Master difficulty of this game its not like chosing the very easy mode from the beginning like rebels that have shielding and 360 arcs ;P. i for myself it is more than satifsying to beat rebel players with my imperial piloting skill ^^.

now heads up and turn em to space debris

I really don't think turrets cheapen the game, man. It's a weak thing to fall back on. It'd be like, me saying aw man my bomber list got shredded by arc-dodging-interceptor-dirty-businessmen, no more maneuverable ships please?

I know I'm over simplifying. But the point remains, turrets are great and enhance the flavor of the game. Edited: or at least increases the number of strategical considerations, no? That's fun.

I can't remember, were you the other TIE swarm list or the bombers that made it in the top 8 or which list was yours? Just wondering so I can put a name to a face. I was the guy with interceptors that took a place in the top 4 (Was too tired to play Dallas at my ships strengths, was still a fun game but man his dice and my poor flying after 14 hours of straight gaming did not help.)

At Kublacon I had to play against not two falcons, but three Falcon lists with my interceptors. Yet, get this, I only lost 1 interceptor and Dark Curse at most against all these lists, the lists that were suppose to counter me! Funny enough, the one list I lost to was a Firespray+2 interceptors that ended up taking second, guess I should go out and say how OP firesprays are then. I even had one YT player sit down across from me and said to my face that he was happy to get to fight against my list because it was going to be easy, I didn't lose a single ship.

I personally feel every one that is nay saying turrets are just using that as a crutch excuse. Regardless of amount of time

nicely played.. i particularly love how you spanked him hard after the comment he made. you probably sent him away with his head in shame

falcons are beatable, i've done it numerous times myself. especially when your defense dice don't let you down. it really is this hlc i fear. and if biggs is backing him up, you're likely to lose 1-2 ships before you can even fire at it

i'm skeptical but hopeful!

congrats on your placing

Oh calm down exe...

I flew the bomber swarm with howl. Unless you're Sam, I did not play you. Were you one of the two brothers at the tournament? I did not have the pleasure of playing either of you.