I see a lot of people having a lot of fun with Dagobah Dave's Death Star trench run scenario. Limited to Ties, Xs and Ys it might help breath some life back into the group. It then might open the doors of interest away from the 100pt deathmatch and into more scenario based gaming.

Every loves that battle, everyone would love to recreate it and everyone loves playing on a gorgeous board.

I actually allow A-wings as well since they were in the battle . I will also house the Keyan Farlander card as a Y-wing when we play that scenario.

yep i agree

I ran 'organised play' for GW UK for years. All my events were themed campaign weekends rather than 'anyone vs anyone' tournys

You bought a ticket and signed up to play five game a weekend of 40k or warhammer but there were limited places for each race and they were put into 'task forces' and assigned territories, you won territories on a map by winning games but as the task forces were alligned into roughly good/evil factions you never had anything naff happen like 'imperial space marines vs imperial space marines'...

Some campaigns you were limited to say 'tau and eldar vs tyranids'

They always sold out really really quickly. The demand is there for games like that but they take about ten times more work to put on than a swiss system tournament... so no one can be bothered.

There is, of course, another alternative to force players to vary how they play. In the Rebel Transport campaign, the Imperials had a set number of points that they could use for each battle and a very simple restriction: a named pilot could only appear once in a battle during a campaign. It's a simple enough procedure.

So have players prepare a couple of lists with that restriction; at least you won't be stuck playing against Han and Whisper all night long.

Discussion wise, we are mostly looking into the Defender, since they can fight both ships; falcon with outmaneuver, phantoms by simply getting behind them with K4 and see them struggle to turn around, especially non-echo phantoms, but so far the Defender is really lacking, in that it is very expensive and very dicey.

Brath with a HLC is a serious counter to both those ship. If you already have wave 5, I suggest giving him Lonewolf for more survivability. If it's still not legal, go with predator. Pair him with a mini swarm and it will be very good against the Falcon and still present a threat to the Phantom list by keeping his distance to have a big line of sight. If you are too worried by the Phantom, give him VI and laugh at them by moving after them to reposition with barrel roll and laugh at them by shooting 4 dice vs their 2.

Funny that if we look at the top 8 from your tournament result, that's exactly that kind of build that made it into third position.

well, the player ultimately got defeated by 2 falcon lists, and lost to every single phantom list he faced, not to mention how the defender is arguably more difficult to fly effectively than either the falcon or the phantom. Also, the problem with it being too dicey and prone to accidents.

And no, I do not think house rules would be a good way to settle this problem. I believe most players would want to stick with the original game as far as possible. I am currently looking more into scenario based gameplay, although i doubt the reception would be good given how most players here still prefer standard games

Lost to every phantom list he faced and 2 falcon lists and still got third? How is that possible?

I thought you just load up on Flachette Torpedoes to take out the Phantom? If they are stressed, they can't get their free cloak action. So, load up on FT and Munitions Failsafe to get a ton of stress causing torpedoes. Fire two on the Phantom and they can only get rid of one stress the next turn. That means no free cloaking (as you can't be stressed and cloaked).

The other option is high PS pilots that aren't Han. Wedge is PS9 and can cream a Phantom if it's uncloaked. Ten Numb mixed with Etahn can hit a Phantom even if cloaked.

Yeah I've seen Wedge shoot up phantoms in other peoples games but agian you need to make sure you've got that good arc spread.

Nera Dantels will be good against Phantoms as will Farlander with Stay on Target.

Both are able to remove the Phantoms main advantage of movement supremacy.

well, the player ultimately got defeated by 2 falcon lists, and lost to every single phantom list he faced, not to mention how the defender is arguably more difficult to fly effectively than either the falcon or the phantom. Also, the problem with it being too dicey and prone to accidents.

Ultimately getting defeated by a Falcon list should not make the list suddenly bad. Defeat will still happen, unless the only solution you're looking for is making the Falcon lists unplayable. The Falcon is one of the most iconic ship from the movies, seeing him go away from the tournament scene would be bad.

For the Phantom, I can understand why since his list had not much to counter it, but tweak some things here and there and it can work, at least giving you a 50/50 chance of victory. VI on Brath and the inclusion of Howlrunner should do the trick.

Defender might (and really just might) be more difficult to fly, but when flown well, it has a lot going on for it. I think it is one of the most reliable ship the empire can take. And if the Defender is not your cup of tea, there is the Firespray that cover a lot of ground with his dual firing arc and can take a beating with 10 hit point and evade action.

There is counters to those ships if you are willing to look into it and can settle for less than 100% chance of victory.

I'll say it: from the beginning, I believe the 360 arcs should require an action to turn the arc 90 degrees. Thematically, it's like controlling the gunnery compartment from the movie.

it is virtually impossible to beat a Phantom list unless you've taken something to specifically counter it, e.g. a Falcon build.

Good Sir, I hereby call BS on the above, it is only impossible if you stick to traditional formation flying against Echo/Whisper.

Adapt, and as mentioned above - widen your firing arcs. Should you choose to bring a long a stress inducing ability then it becomes even easier to wreck them.

You make it sound so easy. In my experience, it is not. Basically, the choice appears to be to spread out your firing arcs and hope for a couple of shots on a 4-agility cloaked Phantom, while the rest of the Phantom's list chews you up through focus fire, or you take a specific Phantom counter as I said, such as a stress inducer, of which there are currently only a couple that will definitely stick and you usually still need to catch the Phantom in your arc.

My point stands. The Phantom is the only ship you specifically MUST take a counter for to be able to beat (unless luck is massively on your side, or the Phantom player doesn't know what he's doing). There is no other ship that does that and it destroys casual play.

But it IS easy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thach_Weave

I'll say it: from the beginning, I believe the 360 arcs should require an action to turn the arc 90 degrees. Thematically, it's like controlling the gunnery compartment from the movie.

I'll say it: from the beginning the Falcon should have had 2 attack per turn and be costed accordingly, instead of creating the gunner cards. Thematically, it represent both turrets being manned independantly, like when they escape the Death Star in Episode 4.

In addition to playing X-wing, I practice Aikido and after 5 years of training I have found that the martial arts are not for everyone. Some people come for a few lessons and quietly disappear, others leave after taking their first kyu test, still others talk a lot about how much they love the training, buy all the equipment and then inexplicably stop. Why do people leave? Maybe they don't have the time, maybe their finances can't keep up, maybe its just to hard and they are not having fun. Who knows why Aikido training sticks in some people and others not. Everybody has their reasons but the only way we have found to keep people coming in the door is to have a fun welcoming environment.

When I get on the mat with someone, I have to take into account their skill level. I don't pound on beginners. It's not fun for me or them. Instead, I try to train appropriate to their experience. I find that there is always some fundamental I can be working on. In some dojos, there is a wide variety of skill levels. Lets say that your group has a core of people that really want to train hard i.e. hard attacks, hard throws. Those people will naturally seek each other out. I like to think that I am in this group; however, if I weren't feeling up to hard training due to injury or fatigue or am just interested on working on some minutia of the art, I would train with somebody else. If given no other choice, I might say I'm injured or am working on this or that thing. It takes two to practice and anybody who is cool will usually accommodate. Conversely, if I choose to train with intensity, THERE IS NO COMPLAINING. Take the punishment, learn from it and grow.

X-wing has a similar vibe for me. Some people are interested in flying list that win, others want to have fun putting themselves in the Star Wars universe. Both are okay; both are interested in having fun.

If our dojo had a member retention problem, our first inclination would not be to blame Aikido, but rather to look at ourselves. Are we having fun? Are we turning people off? Aikido isn't broken. Similarly, I don't believe X-wing is broken. Are there some pieces that are more challenging then others? Yes! Right now its the Phantom and Fat Han. Have they ruined the game? Absolutely not. Why? Because you can kill them.

It is true that the most recent tournaments have been dominated by Phantoms and Falcons; Phantoms because they are the new hotness (the ship has only been out for a few months!) and Falcons because everyone is afraid of the cloaking mechanic. However, I think that people are kidding themselves if they think that the named Phantoms or Falcons are the only ships that suck to deal with! Consider these heavy hitters; Soontir Fel, Corran Horn, Turr Phennir, Wedge, a generic Bounty Hunter. These ships have all caused me ire and incidentally all of them can be used to great effect against either Falcons or Phantoms.

In my opinion a good list doesn't have to include a Phantom or Falcon OR be designed exclusively to defeat them. A good list simply needs to acknowledge that they exist. Phantoms and Falcons both have weaknesses that can be exploited. Simple additions to a list to handle a phantom could be a high pilot skill ship (e.g. Soontir, Turr w/ VI), a stress mechanic (e.g. Bounty Hunter w/Rebel captive, Y-wing with R3A2 and ion), tactics (blocking via greater number of ships which also incidentally gives you more guns) or quality of shot (HLC). Falcons can be trapped, blocked, stressed and out gunned.

Ultimately, environment is everything; if people aren't having fun, they leave. I like to think that if the person I am playing is having fun he or she will come back. In fact, I WANT them to come back because I want somebody to play with. Don't get me wrong, I try and win, but I feel that it is my responsibility as a regular to insure the people I play are enjoying themselves. Not everybody is an expert or prepping for a tournament. To this end, I usually have two lists I am working on; one where I am trying out new ships and mechanics and another that is very competitive. I pick between the two based on what my opponent wants and fly casual.

An erudite and well thought out post.

well said chap.

About the Thach Weave and planning against maneuverability is much easier than planning against statistics. I find it much harder to really "fly better" versus the Falcon than you can vs the Phantom. The Phantom is pretty easy as LordVogi said: your list should either know it exists and have a soft counter, or you can fly better and learn to catch it in your arcs with many low ps ships.

Does that mean its not worth trying to figure out how to fly better vs Han? No, but there's a certain other problem to Han more than just flying better.

The numbers do not agree with anything the two guys in the vid see.

The two guys in the vid are the lead designers of X-Wing. They commented on the top 8 you listed and also some other ships that were widely represented at lower levels of the tournament. Of note, neither the Falcon nor any other large ship build has ever before won a national tournament. So why the sudden mass hysteria just because it's popular?

Claiming that fat/falcon is not possibly OP because the build has not won a tourney is pretty stupid when five of the top eight winners were falcon lists.

Falcons are popular because they are easy mode.

Claiming that fat/falcon is not possibly OP because the build has not won a tourney is pretty stupid when five of the top eight winners were falcon lists.

Martel, keep it civil. The point was that the the Falcon at the time of interview was for the first time a national contender.

Incidentally this statement by the developers that a large base ship had never won a Nationals before was incorrect.

Triple bounty hunter won in Italy in June, and Fat Han won the Nordic Nationals the previous weekend. They should follow the stats more! :-)

Honestly, I understand respecting the developers and the company for what they've done right, but I also think there are some things that just aren't really done well. Some of this isn't just development, but also perhaps company policy and public relations what not. anyway.

I'm hoping they do something nice about the whole meta thing right now. Something to help Interceptors, something to help the never used ships, Adv, Bomber. Hopefully SV fixes HWKs and Ys. Rebel Aces will hopefully add more cool stuff to the As. Really, low attack ships that aren't cheap don't do so well.

Well, it is the start of school season, which also adds in more extra curricular activities that take up time even for those who finished school years ago.

If you think the meta is what chasing people away use a league with an achievement format that goes against the meta such as destroy 2 ships using torpedoes or win with a YT-1300 that has no unique cards (So no fat Han C-3PO or Luke). I find those games interesting as they bring squadrons and cards you never see in tournaments such as 2 Tie Advanced because an achievement said win a game withe 2.

Well, it is the start of school season, which also adds in more extra curricular activities that take up time even for those who finished school years ago.

If you think the meta is what chasing people away use a league with an achievement format that goes against the meta such as destroy 2 ships using torpedoes or win with a YT-1300 that has no unique cards (So no fat Han C-3PO or Luke). I find those games interesting as they bring squadrons and cards you never see in tournaments such as 2 Tie Advanced because an achievement said win a game withe 2.

I would play this.

You could give away free prizes that are left over, or actually, distribute some certain prizes this way instead.

I find the best way to counter a Phantom list is with Y wing and Ion. Add a couple of Z-95s with Assualt missles in case you run into swarms and you are generally good to go. Change Assault missles to any other type to take care of the Millennium Falcon. Generally 5

I fail to see what the actual issues are with Whispe/echo. Sure they are excelent ships, but they can be shut down so hard and so easily by much cheaper ships. I know that technically a cloaked whisper is as durable as a falcon, but that seems to be playing with stats a tad. One single stress or ion token will wreck a phantom when the Falcon will just laugh and shoot. One mistimed bump and it is dead, when good old Han and co just keep blasting.

And Blount with an ion missile is easily half the cost of a decent Whisper and destroys those phantoms.

I fail to see what the actual issues are with Whispe/echo. Sure they are excelent ships, but they can be shut down so hard and so easily by much cheaper ships.

There are two issues:

1) Even if the phantom can be countered it still has a disproportionate impact on the metagame. You either play a phantom list or a list with a significant anti-phantom element, and "how do I kill a phantom" is by far the most important thing to consider in building a list. And a lot of lists simply fail the phantom test, so they aren't viable options. Get rid of ACD and you probably open up the metagame significantly.

2) There are counters, but people are lazy and take the easiest counter: Falcons. This puts more turrets in the metagame, especially since anti-Falcon lists often fail the phantom test. And many people find game after game against turret lists to be severely lacking in fun. Get rid of ACD and you probably also make those annoying Falcon lists a lot less common.

And Blount with an ion missile is easily half the cost of a decent Whisper and destroys those phantoms.

If you can get Blount into a position to shoot against a ship that is higher PS and incredibly good at arc dodging AND get a target lock AND not have Blount killed before he can shoot despite being lower PS than his target AND get the phantom into a position where a single turn of predictable movement and not being able to decloak is actually fatal instead of just slightly annoying. This is hardly a reliable counter.

And of course you can compare that list of requirements to the requirements for the Falcon: take a Falcon in your list, declare the phantom as a target and roll dice. This is why so many people take the easy way out and just use turrets.

OP I know you said you want to stick to 100pts free play (hence the restrictions in my first post), but I really do think that leaving out missions (especially when teaching newbies) is a big mistake. The missions offer a clear objective, multiple ways to win, and an extra layer of immersion. They also help break the monotomy of 100 vs 100 free for all.

Kind of like what LordVogl said above: running just raw 100 vs 100 is like just doing one type of training over and over and over and...

the consensus here seem to be more of phantom is on par with the falcon, as opposed to the falcon triumphing over the phantom. Because honestly, cloaked phantom double focus is pretty much the only ship that can reliably dodge chewbacca predator luke crew, and because of how the phantom and the falcon are on par with each other, any anti falcon builds are wrecked by the phantom rather easily, and vice versa, so there isnt really anything playable outside from these

What consensus? The phantom wrecks very low PS and people who refuse to break formation, and Falcons destroy it completely. The whole reason for the Falcon pandemic is beating phantoms.

Kind of like what LordVogl said above: running just raw 100 vs 100 is like just doing one type of training over and over and over and...

Cycling for a bike race. 100 vs 100 is the only tournament format, so it's going to dominate discussions on the official forums.