In a three ship Imperial list with Soontir Fel and Captain Yorr.

GenCon was NOT a predictable result.

You cannot seriously compare the two, one requires an action (a specific action - which locks you into taking just that) and the other one is a passive effect which requires no skill to use.

Of course I can - because focus is the go-to action for most ships, foucs tokens can quite often be used in multiple ways, for attack AND defence - and Recon Specialist DOUBLES it's effects. For 3 points.

With the Falcon Title and C3PO the Fat Han can guarantee 2 evades. If they need to risk it they can go for 3 with a fair degree of success.

On a ship with 13HP this makes it extremely tanky - something that is fine if the ship is only designed as a tank, but less balanced if the ship has the damage dealing potential of Han w/gunner or Luke.

If recon specialist was unbalanced we'd see them in every crew slot - but we don't. C3PO has become the gold standard (sorry) in falcon lists though.

Whoop - two evades, per turn, on a one agility ship. And all it costs you is four points and an action. Amazing.

So - taking your example of Han (with the Falcon Title, and C3PO, and Luke) - that's 57 points. 57 points to soak two damage per turn (assuming you have your action available and don't ever plan on using them elsewhere) and can dish out enough damage to reliably kill half a 12 point Academy TIE fighter per turn. Awesome.

People say well 3PO only cancels ONE hit a round. Well with a tanky ship like a falcon, even focus firing means you're probably taking at least 2-3 rounds to kill it depending on your squad makeup. That extra hit cancelled each of those 2-3 rounds means the falcon might last one round longer than expected, so it gets one extra shot at your squad.

So what you're saying is the Falcon has time to reliably kill TWO Academy Ties before it croaks instead of just one and a half. I'm in awe.

when i found out that you can guess 'zero' that meant that you were getting one if you were right and one if you were wrong just seemed a bit lame.. hence i rarely put him on a falcon, as while i know its a good effect it just seems beardy to me.

I've heard this before, and it's garbage. What on earth is "beardy" about doing what the card instructs you to do?

"Once per round, before you roll 1 or more defence dice, you may guess aloud a number of Evade results. If you roll that many Evade results (before modifying dice), add 1 Evade result."

You're rolling one evade dice. There are two possible results. Therefore, there are two guesses you are able to make.

What you're effectively saying there Gadge, is that it's "unsporting" to answer a yes or no question with "no".

The way some people are talking you'd think ships with three agility dice didn't exist. After all, insanely overpowered with all those hits they're cancelling, right?

Who here openly admits to being unable to defeat a Millenium Falcon?

The way some people are talking you'd think ships with three agility dice didn't exist. After all, insanely overpowered with all those hits they're cancelling, right?

Who here openly admits to being unable to defeat a Millenium Falcon?

But a tie fighter isn't 13 hit points and can very easily killed in one round of shooting, same cant be said of teh falcon.

A single TIE fighter costs about 13 points. A Falcon costs about 50. You can't compare them one to one.

Take the point equivalent of four TIEs versus one Falcon. Sure, if it's lucky it can oneshot one (it probably won't), but even that leaves three TIE fighters. Against an entire list, that leaves six or seven TIE fighters and their 12 attack dice.

In a three ship Imperial list with Soontir Fel and Captain Yorr.

GenCon was NOT a predictable result.

The Top 8 was pretty predictable with any other results we have been getting lately from big tournaments, but we continue the trend about winner list only instead of top lists performance, because it just suits us. And when the falcon build wins, it is because there are many good players who felt the urge to handicap themselves.

Get a grip already, the Falcon list is a very solid list. EU actually makes it much better than people give it credit for against swarms and against 4 rebel ships (here it is even better).

Can you beat the Falcon, DreadStar?

Can you beat the Falcon, DreadStar?

Are we going down this road again ? Seriously ? Didn't we already have this stupid convo a few weeks ago ?

Do you always feel like taking it to a personal level whenever you don't really know what to answer ?

Don't dodge the question. Can you, or can you not, defeat the Millenium Falcon when you encounter it?

So you are out of arguments.

I will answer the same i answered you the last time. The phrasing of your question tries to represent me like i am whining about the falcon, or i feel like i cannot beat it, or i think it is overpowered, which i am clearly not, since i said it is a solid list. not an unbeatable one. I know my english is far from good, but it is not that bad.

You do this, to either annoy me, or be able to picture me as a whiner, even tho i haven't whined. So it is just baseless and unnecessary crap to dilute a discussion when you don't feel like continue to argue about it, trying to take it to a personal level, when i am just making a point about your assumption that GenCon results were unexpected, which would be true if you ignore the top 8.

Whenever we are talking about the meta, a huge percentage of it, is fat falcons or phantom builds. There is no deny on it. Any assumption about it being popular, just by being popular, has been already debunked in some way or the another, and while there is obviously extremely ignorant posts against the falcon full of rethoric, there are counter arguments in the same fashion, as the one i quoted from you, trying to paint a picture about GenCon which is false. It was full of falcons too, it didn't happen to win, but it doesn't mean it wasn't present in the finals, or most of the top brackets anyways.

So whenever i say, the falcon is solid, i have results behind my words backing it up. And i guess that's the reason you feel the need to ask questions which aren't needed, instead of answering to my retort directly.

Some advice for this thread after many years of internet experience: Ignore the trolls.

The Falcon has never been a bad option. I just think the popularity currently has more to do with fighting the Phantom than the strength of Threepio.

That's still not a direct answer, but I'm going to assume your answer is yes, you can beat it.

In your own words, it is not unbeatable.

It is not overpowered, it is not broken, it is not better than all the other lists.

You accuse me of not answering you directly, but that is because there is nothing to answer. You've said the current "Fat Han" Falcon build is good, and nobody is in disagreement there. It's a good build in a game full of good builds. In terms of the mechanics of the game, Fat Han is nothing special.

So why is it everywhere?

Because the internet put it there.

1. Because it's there already.

Once a list hits the top it tends to stay there. Many, many people copy their lists off of win and Top 8 rankings, leading to a list that's won being played a lot. Falcons appeared in the GenCon Top 8. You said GenCon was full of Falcons.

GenCon is big. There were, what, five Falcons in the Top 8? Where are the rest of them?

Not in the Top 8.

Therefore, GenCon must have had a hell of a lot of dead Falcons, and not at the hands of other Falcons.

More Falcons means more wins and more losses for the Falcon. There'll be more at the top and more at the bottom. However, we only see the the final cut! All these failed falcons go unseen, and the illusion persists. Same thing with XXBB, almost unheard off until Paul Heaver wins with it and then it will not get out of the win rankings. Now the popular lists have shifted it's gone.

Once a list becomes that dominant in numbers the Top 8 results cease to be informative. They no longer account for the sheer volume of Falcons. It's like saying more sixes are on red dice than blue dice when you're rolling twice as many red dice.

2. Because of what's not there.

Everyone's scared of the big bad phantom. It was designed to break up the tight formations and it did: it forced players to fly differently rather in one big boring block. Players hit by this resented this, thus resented the TIE phantom and thus called it overpowered. And when you make claims like that people believe you. Result? Turrets explode in popularity and low pilot skill swarms all but die out. The things that kill Falcons aren't being played in significant numbers any more.

3. Because people think it's overpowered.

Falcons are now everywhere, and people resent this, to be fair Falcon after Falcon after Falcon is kinda boring. That resentment leads people to want to get rid of it: they're convinced it's an unfair list that's destroying their enjoyment of the game and therefore destroying the game. Lots of people who don't like all these Falcons get together and convince each other that it is overpowered: people read this, think the money's there are play it. Even 40K's WAAC lists, which supposedly are broken, need to be called that frequently and visibly for them to gain traction.

The dominance of the Falcon is not the Falcon's fault, it's the community's. If we call it overpowered in our frustrations at fighting so **** many of them people will believe us. And they'll fly it.

Wave 6'll bring Autothrusters and scare the Falcon horde away, the Falcon will remain, the Falcon will still be good, but the perceived threat will drop its numbers and once it gets few Top 8s (due to fewer Falcons being played) its numbers will drop to a sensible level again.

Let's try really hard in the next Waves that when something new beats us, we don't as a playerbase scream overpowered so loudly that the metagame hears it and shifts, catapulting a decent list to disproportionate dominance.

Umm, without access to the all the squad lists at Gencon, you can't make that declaration. With so many players, I have a tough time seeing 5/8 all being Falcon based. Yes, it's popular, but those 4 different Falcon squads in the top 8 were both good and played by good players. It really is insulting to say that those players are victim of group think. The Falcon is the reliable counter to the Phantom, which really is what you must take into account when playing a tournament. So it is a pretty good meta call. I'm just happy to see some very interesting variety in the builds (Corran Horn made top 8).

And I think people are getting their hopes up way too high for Autothrusters.

furthermore, I dont think purely looking at Gencon is enough; you should also look at other tournaments from other places. Even in these other tournaments, the falcon and phantoms are over-represented within the top 8 lists, and prior to wave 4 the only list that could claim to have a similar level of success would be the 7 TIE howl swarm

Yeah, there was quite a wave of Double Falcons in the Wave 2 Regional season. Where we had this EXACT SAME argument. At least with Wave 5 we can start to include other turreted ships into the mix...

Umm, without access to the all the squad lists at Gencon, you can't make that declaration.

DreadStar said GenCon was "full of Falcons." Nevertheless, not having access to all the squads is exactly my point: people don't see them. We can't use Top 8s to determine the "best lists" any more than we can use just the winner. All tournaments identify is good players, the numbers of each list are far too skewed by other variables.

Yes, it's popular, but those 4 different Falcon squads in the top 8 were both good and played by good players. It really is insulting to say that those players are victim of group think.

Good players with good lists flying well and expecting a phantom glut.

But do you think every player that's adopted the Falcon since these forums started screaming about it did so because they fully reasoned it out? That the majority didn't adopt it because it's practically being called X-wing's WAAC list nowadays?

the falcon and phantoms are over-represented

And why are they overrepresented? Is it because FFG's designers completely screwed up and created a killer combo? Or is it because the internet's backseat designers say FFG completely screwed up and created a killer combo, a very large number of people believe them, the rising numbers of the lists means that they've got a higher probability to win, the same people don't realise that and thus the increasing number of reported wins falsely appears to confirm it?

In a tournament where only TIE advanceds are being flown, the TIE advanced will appear in every Top 8. Falcons have the advantage of actually being good, so you need fewer of them to achieve the same effect but it's the same principle: put four Falcons into a tournament and you've got a higher chance of one of those Falcons placing highly than if you sent one Falcon in.

And I think people are getting their hopes up way too high for Autothrusters.

Of course. Metagames rarely shift due to long thought out reasoning, they shift due to thinking they've been "solved" or by getting spooked. Blount scared off the TIE swarm, and where is he?

with the dual falcons, the concern was more about the millenium fortress, which was an outright exploitation of the game engine itself, as opposed to card combinations being too powerful for their points. Naturally, the concern would be more pressing than any other issues we have encountered thus far, this included

I played in all 7 rounds on Thursday and the first 3 rounds of Saturday, and ran into only 3 falcons (3 of my 5 losses, but still...)

I assume a lot of it is because of the same reason since it was released. The Falcon can be a tough piece to kill. Especially 2. Which can be a bit rough on a high cost glass cannon.

Please, the Fortress was hardly an issue back in Wave 2. Double Falcons were dominant back then, and I would say even more than they are "now".

The Falcon didn't kick off in Wave 2 because Wave 2 and 3's metagames favoured firepower. Out of a misplaced fear of phantom all these lists vanished.

Wow, 14 pages!

I must say I don't understand a lot of the arguments against the "named YT1300 pilots are overpowered" argument, which is what this seems to be an evolution of.

Argument one - "movement still matters just as much". Yes, movement matters as you want to stay out of arcs, but that's easy because a) it's a manoeuvrable ship, and b) that's all you have to consider when moving - you don't care about your own arc. In effect you can choose a greater number of your movement options and still come out in a good position. Whether you call this "making movement less important" or "making movement easier" is just semantics, it's clearly a big benefit.

Argument two - "you can beat it with xyz". Fine, but it detracts from the fun of squad building if you feel you need to pick a squad specifically to counter another squad.

Argument three - "it's only got one attack per turn". Yeah, with a very good chance of hitting, and a very good chance of not being shot back. One shot per turn is the wrong metric - a better one would be shots you get vs shots your opponent gets.

Argument four - "but it costs so much". Well, yeah, obviously, that's part of the equation when considering if it's overpowered or not, clearly the people you're arguing with know that.

sigh

The Double Falcon was clearly dominant in the Wave 2 regional environment. Firesprays weren't that popular.

You cannot seriously compare the two, one requires an action (a specific action - which locks you into taking just that) and the other one is a passive effect which requires no skill to use.

Of course I can - because focus is the go-to action for most ships, foucs tokens can quite often be used in multiple ways, for attack AND defence - and Recon Specialist DOUBLES it's effects. For 3 points.

With the Falcon Title and C3PO the Fat Han can guarantee 2 evades. If they need to risk it they can go for 3 with a fair degree of success.

On a ship with 13HP this makes it extremely tanky - something that is fine if the ship is only designed as a tank, but less balanced if the ship has the damage dealing potential of Han w/gunner or Luke.

If recon specialist was unbalanced we'd see them in every crew slot - but we don't. C3PO has become the gold standard (sorry) in falcon lists though.

Whoop - two evades, per turn, on a one agility ship. And all it costs you is four points and an action. Amazing.

So - taking your example of Han (with the Falcon Title, and C3PO, and Luke) - that's 57 points. 57 points to soak two damage per turn (assuming you have your action available and don't ever plan on using them elsewhere) and can dish out enough damage to reliably kill half a 12 point Academy TIE fighter per turn. Awesome.

People say well 3PO only cancels ONE hit a round. Well with a tanky ship like a falcon, even focus firing means you're probably taking at least 2-3 rounds to kill it depending on your squad makeup. That extra hit cancelled each of those 2-3 rounds means the falcon might last one round longer than expected, so it gets one extra shot at your squad.

So what you're saying is the Falcon has time to reliably kill TWO Academy Ties before it croaks instead of just one and a half. I'm in awe.

when i found out that you can guess 'zero' that meant that you were getting one if you were right and one if you were wrong just seemed a bit lame.. hence i rarely put him on a falcon, as while i know its a good effect it just seems beardy to me.

I've heard this before, and it's garbage. What on earth is "beardy" about doing what the card instructs you to do?

"Once per round, before you roll 1 or more defence dice, you may guess aloud a number of Evade results. If you roll that many Evade results (before modifying dice), add 1 Evade result."

You're rolling one evade dice. There are two possible results. Therefore, there are two guesses you are able to make.

What you're effectively saying there Gadge, is that it's "unsporting" to answer a yes or no question with "no".

Clearly its the fact that you cant lose either way....

I must say I don't understand a lot of the arguments against the "named YT1300 pilots are overpowered" argument, which is what this seems to be an evolution of.

It's your place to prove it is overpowered, not everyone elses' to prove that its not. The assumption is that FFG's designers know what they're doing.

Argument one - "movement still matters just as much". Yes, movement matters as you want to stay out of arcs, but that's easy because a) it's a manoeuvrable ship, and b) that's all you have to consider when moving - you don't care about your own arc. In effect you can choose a greater number of your movement options and still come out in a good position. Whether you call this "making movement less important" or "making movement easier" is just semantics, it's clearly a big benefit.

This is an argument about fun, not about power. The Falcon negates arc-dodging on the part of the enemy, at least until Wave 5 when we find out what Autothrusters is. The Falcon has a far higher need to keep out of arc and maintain its firepower advantage, and thus the opponent needs to predict its movement and keep it in arc, and ideally block it if possible.

Argument two - "you can beat it with xyz". Fine, but it detracts from the fun of squad building if you feel you need to pick a squad specifically to counter another squad.

More you can beat it with pqrstuvwxyz, with klmno being at a disadvantage. The Falcon is good against super-arc-dodgers, and some players of that kind of list won't be happy until they can reliably dodge the arcs of everything, that is to say, until their list is overpowered. The Falcon has strengths and it has weaknesses. You'd think in a Falcon heavy meta people would be jumping on the swarms, but strangely no. The World Championship, that has the French National eight TIE swarm master player up against amazingly good Falcon players, will be very interesting indeed.

Argument three - "it's only got one attack per turn". Yeah, with a very good chance of hitting, and a very good chance of not being shot back. One shot per turn is the wrong metric - a better one would be shots you get vs shots your opponent gets.

Only if you give it Gunner, which a lot of ships can take. As for the metric question, which depends on the opponent's list, not on the Falcon. If you consciously give yourself a firepower disadvantage or rely on a glass cannon like the phantom then the Falcon will have an easier time beating you. Corner the Falcon with more hitpoints and more gun (ie, more ships) and it'll die quite quickly. As for if you can corner it, that's your player skill versus theirs, which tournaments are meant to measure.