I must say since wave 4 has been released I have generally been flying a falcon or Ewing if I use rebels and if I run imps I use different lists with phantoms or defenders and generally have so me sort of shuttle.

I know that the swarm is still effective but are some of the other lists that had success before wave 4 still going to work in the current meta. For example would a Biggs walks the dogs list still do well or would it be chewed up on the routine scene. Do Rebs really require a decent names pilot now to be effective?

The Great Mustachio is once again good in this Meta...

Try 2x Proton, Engine, and Ion cannon on him with Tarn r7 and 2 chardaan refit A's... works wonders.

Yes.

This has been another addition of Short Answers to Long Questions.

But seriously, the more releases come out, the more viable old ships become.

There are so many things I love about this game. But one of them is how things that used to be good, stay good. Let's go over that was good in wave 1

TIE Swarms - still good.

Howelrunner - still good

4 Ship rebel builds - still good

a Y-wing with an ion turret - still good

Biggs - still good

What did Wave 2 add

PtL - Still good

HSF - Still good

Firesprays - still good

(Wave 3 isn't really that old, but here goes anyway)

Bomber swarms - still good

B-wings - still good

All that crazy shuttle stuff - still good

Named HWK pilots - still good

FFG has done a really good job of expanding this game without power creeping this game. As the game has progressed the variety of good lists has exploded. In fact there are even more ways to play previously good list ideas with small tweaks that new ships and upgrades made possible.

There definitely is power creep in this game. It's just that new cards can still apply to older ships, thus keeping them in the game. Remember, there was a time that Marksmanship was the only offensive EPT, now it is being outpreformed by Predator, Outmanoeuvre and Opportunist on all but some very specific pilots.

That said, I hardly use any of the wave 4 ships. I love the cards that came with the transport though.
Currently I fly;

2x Blue, AdvSens

Gold, IonCT, R3-A2

Tarn Mison, R7 Astromech.

Some ships are slow to see attention. The Advanced is the most notoriously neglected ship in the game. The A-Wing is finally seeing some much needed attention. I think the Y-Wing could use some attention.

I know that TIE swarms are falling out of favor, but new TIE pilots would be awesome. I mean, they were the most common pilot in the era, so it would be great to see more TIE fighter options. That being said, TIE fighters are still great.

The Y-wing is the Wedge Antilles of X-wing, cool to see, but no real development. The Y-wing gets love, it just doesn't get diversity.

Some ships are slow to see attention. The Advanced is the most notoriously neglected ship in the game. The A-Wing is finally seeing some much needed attention. I think the Y-Wing could use some attention.

I know that TIE swarms are falling out of favor, but new TIE pilots would be awesome. I mean, they were the most common pilot in the era, so it would be great to see more TIE fighter options. That being said, TIE fighters are still great.

I wouldn't mind seeing some more Tie Pilots myself. Really only Howlrunner and Backstabber see play regularly. Dark Curse, Mauler and Nightbeast aren't used all that much.

The Y-wing is the Wedge Antilles of X-wing, cool to see, but no real development. The Y-wing gets love, it just doesn't get diversity.

I have to say that I think Y-wings are MUCH more effective than they used to be. They were pretty bad in Waves 1 and 2 due to the fact that you usually faced swarms or mini-swarms of Tie Fighters. Lots of shots, even at just 2 dice, is bad for the Y-wing. They died pretty fast.

I started using Y-wing with Ion Turret recently and it's amazing. I'm usually facing 3 enemy ships, no matter what faction. This means I'm not facing as many shots each turn. That means I'm surviving a lot longer. The 360 shots w/ Ion Cannon mean I'm able to hit anything, even if it's more manueverable than me. I'm also going with Dutch and R7-T1, which means I get to Boost without paying for it, and get the Target Lock to share around, as well. It makes the Y-wing more manueverable and can get out of the way sometimes. Or....into the way, depending on where you want to be.

You can also take Flachette Torp. that are essential to stopping the Phantom Menance that is the current meta now.

My go-to Rebel squad for local tournament play doesn't contain anything from later than Wave III, and most of it is from Wave II. I'm not winning tournaments with it (yet), but it has gotten me to the final table a couple of times, and a few other players have mentioned that it's intimidating, so I'll probably run it until it wins or it's clear that it's not quite good enough to cross the finish line.

What squad are you running Dave?

YEAH, DAVE!

what squad?

There definitely is power creep in this game. It's just that new cards can still apply to older ships, thus keeping them in the game. Remember, there was a time that Marksmanship was the only offensive EPT, now it is being outpreformed by Predator, Outmanoeuvre and Opportunist on all but some very specific pilots. That said, I hardly use any of the wave 4 ships. I love the cards that came with the transport though.Currently I fly; 2x Blue, AdvSensGold, IonCT, R3-A2Tarn Mison, R7 Astromech.

No that's BS, there is no power creep, just more options.

Wave one ships are just as powerful now as they were back then.

Marksmanship has its place with certain pilots and not with others.

That's a good thing as now when we play we don't see the same few lists on the table.

Basically any list is better now due to all the options we have to choose between, if anything that would be my only complaint is I can't decide on what to field :-P

There is powercreep, look at the basic Xwing for example, compared to other options like 2x bandits. Even within the Xwing itself, 23pts could get you Tarn instead of Red sqd. And lets not get into other wormy cans like TIEadv, TIEint vs TIEphantoms, Awing prior to Aces, etcetc to name a few

There is powercreep, look at the basic Xwing for example, compared to other options like 2x bandits. Even within the Xwing itself, 23pts could get you Tarn instead of Red sqd. And lets not get into other wormy cans like TIEadv, TIEint vs TIEphantoms, Awing prior to Aces, etcetc to name a few

But people still use X-wings. Heck, it is still my favorite rebel ship. Tarn may be as many points as a Red Squadron, but he has a lower PS. He isn't hands down better, just another option. Rebel Aces will make A Wings better, but isn't that the opposite of power creep. A-wings a relatively old ship is now better than it was before.

I am not saying that things aren't getting better as we get more and more options. TIEs are used a lot less then they used to be, but just because there are more options on the Imperial side. TIEs (or any other ships that started out good) have not aged themselves out of competitive play.

The only ships that don't see much competitive play is really the TIE Advanced. And guess what, it never really did.

Yes, Predator is pretty much just better than Marksmanship (okay not exactly, because they are both situational so comparisons can only be approximated), but I never really thought Marksmanship was worth taking. Predator didn't make Marksmanship worse, it wasn't that good to begin with.

However, when it comes to cards, I really don't think Power Creep applies. As more upgrades comes into play, favored builds will shift, but that is a far cry from all those X-wings and TIE fighters, I bought when the game came out, slowly becoming useless as new and better ships keep getting released.

23pts could get you Tarn instead of Red sqd

Tarn is PS 3 with a pilot ability, and there's only one of him. Red Squadron Pilot is generic and PS 4. I would call that a trade-off, not power creep.