Wave 5 is IMO going to reinforce the current metagame. It will bring a little more diversity in turret ships and give the imperials a Falcon equivalent, but it's really just going to be a case of "which of your 3 turret ships do you want to spend 50+ points on". The only way I can see it making much of an impact is if adding even more turrets finally kills off the ACD phantom and indirectly opens up the metagame again.

This is guaranteed to happen to an extent. The uncertainty will be in how big of an impact it will be. The counter to HLC Dash will be even more specific than existing Phantom counters: you will want PS10+ (or 9+ with initiative) post-dial reveal movement. PS10+ Engine Upgrade, in particular, is going to be a very good counter to Dash.

I am really against 4 dice 360 Dash. That doesn't sound fun. Sorry. Just not fun. Not casual. Not flying.

Have you actually played against HLC Dash, or are you just assuming that the sky is falling? Remember that there isn't all that much difference between HLC and Falcon + gunner + predator/marksmanship, and getting the HLC turret means giving up gunner. The HLC hits you hard with one attack and punishes low-agility ships like b-wings and decimators, the Falcon gets the same end result by making you spend all of your defensive tokens and then hitting you again against unmodified dice.

3 dice with Gunner is more reliable, especially against high agility targets. But 4 dice HLC, especially with TL+F, is going to do more overall average damage, especially against lower agility targets.

PS 8 if you want to get a lock on Dash. That's the important part. If dash is moving at PS 9 he wont have both a boost and barrel roll and will be considerably less dangerous.

I think the Spanish Nationals would disagree with the current RPS sentiment. At 100+ players, the results are pretty significant, imo.

150 players, only a top 8. I think it is the oppossite, a very big roulette.

Also, was a Fat Han in the finals too ?

Anyway, my point here is not to argue that the set of competitive lists is no narrower now than it was before the introduction of the Phantom; that would be really hard to do (although given the perennial ascendance of the swarm, not impossible).

What I'm trying to say is this: perceiving the game through the lens of a rock-paper-scissors analogy makes you more prone not necessarily to see problems where there are none (although that can certainly happen), but to magnify problems that do exist.

If you talk about X-wing as an RPS-style game, you're implicitly adopting the position that the choices available to you are exclusive, exhaustive, and absolute. If the language you use to describe X-wing implies that that all the lists you face are drawn from the same limited set, then you have adopted a rhetorical position that ignores the variation that does exist; all Falcon lists start to look the same even when some are Super Falcons and some are not, and all Phantoms start to look the same regardless of how your opponent spent the other 60+ points.

I think you're right that any reasoning by analogy is problematic. It's also dangerous to treat the analogy as something other than its intended purpose.

But you're in agreement that the current ecology of builds - be that determined by the material base or by the constructed meta - is a limited set, and that the dominant builds tend to include Falcons and Phantoms, with the TIE swarm being a holdover.

Would you also agree that Falcons have a competitive edge against Phantoms, and that Phantoms have a competitive edge against swarms, and that swarms have a competitive edge against Falcons, ceteris paribus?

What fat falcons, fast dashs, and phantoms all do is degrade the 2 attack ships into ineffectiveness. Issard decimators do the same I think. Unless that 2 dice gun is your 5th+ gun AND efficient, it's almost worthless. Swarm or don't bother (almost).

There will exist more game states where these ships cannot meaningfully contribute when wave 5 really hits. This is a slight evolution of my 85/15 position on the last thread that got locked. It's not RPS but it will start feeling that way; especially that way when a competitive list faces a casual list and if there is player skill disparity. It is bad for the casual game, new players, and could trickle up into the competitive scene.

Wave 5 is IMO going to reinforce the current metagame. It will bring a little more diversity in turret ships and give the imperials a Falcon equivalent, but it's really just going to be a case of "which of your 3 turret ships do you want to spend 50+ points on". The only way I can see it making much of an impact is if adding even more turrets finally kills off the ACD phantom and indirectly opens up the metagame again.

This is guaranteed to happen to an extent. The uncertainty will be in how big of an impact it will be. The counter to HLC Dash will be even more specific than existing Phantom counters: you will want PS10+ (or 9+ with initiative) post-dial reveal movement. PS10+ Engine Upgrade, in particular, is going to be a very good counter to Dash.

I am really against 4 dice 360 Dash. That doesn't sound fun. Sorry. Just not fun. Not casual. Not flying.

Have you actually played against HLC Dash, or are you just assuming that the sky is falling? Remember that there isn't all that much difference between HLC and Falcon + gunner + predator/marksmanship, and getting the HLC turret means giving up gunner. The HLC hits you hard with one attack and punishes low-agility ships like b-wings and decimators, the Falcon gets the same end result by making you spend all of your defensive tokens and then hitting you again against unmodified dice.

3 dice with Gunner is more reliable, especially against high agility targets. But 4 dice HLC, especially with TL+F, is going to do more overall average damage, especially against lower agility targets.

PS 8 if you want to get a lock on Dash. That's the important part. If dash is moving at PS 9 he wont have both a boost and barrel roll and will be considerably less dangerous.

You are right, 4 dice unmodified at PS9 is less scary than 3 dice with focus.

But I am anticipating that most people will over-react to the new meta, at least initially for the first month or so, and be just as afraid of PS9 Dash as PS7 Dash. Some people will think "OMG PS9 Dash!" and want to get up to 10 and 11, the way that many people feel compelled to counter Whisper with PS11 Han + Gunner.

Speaking of PS7 Triple Action Dash, I really should go and run those numbers.... //scurries off to modify scripts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWKcoDzDXFU

I will not fault anyone for wanting to make sure Han shoots first.

But I am anticipating that most people will over-react to the new meta, at least initially for the first month or so, and be just as afraid of PS9 Dash as PS7 Dash. Some people will think "OMG PS9 Dash!" and want to get up to 10 and 11, the way that many people feel compelled to counter Whisper with PS11 Han + Gunner.

I think the last part is the reason why there won't be much of an overreaction (at least beyond the usual OMG THE SKY IS FALLING nonsense we always see). The people who feel compelled to win the PS war and counter those ultra-maneuverable ships have already spent most of the time since wave 4 building lists around the idea that PS 9 is the absolute minimum and PS 10-11 is really important. PS 9 Dash isn't really doing anything that PS 9 Whisper or PS 8 Echo or PS 9-11 engine Han aren't doing right now. If you're content to fly low-PS ships in the current metagame then I don't see Dash changing anything about that.

Theorist on Team Covenant recently posted over two dozen potential "Spock/lizard" lists (Rebel only -- Imperials coming soon). He said his general approach was to begin with lists that had enough firepower to take on Han and then work from there to deal with Phantoms.

I'm not sure how many of the lists would be truly competitve, but it was a fantastic post regardless.

http://teamcovenant.com/maskedbean/2014/10/03/f-han-fighting-the-meta-rebel-options/

instead of buffing weak and underplayed ships, of which there currently exist a huge list (TIEadv TIEint TIEbomber Ywing), wouldnt it be much more effective if we targetted the strong ships and bring them down instead? (ACD phantom / maxed out Falcon)

How? If you made some sort of "Chaardan Defect" card that did nothing but make the ship more expensive, nobody'd run it. FFG's approach is to give ships more options to make them better: you can't make something worse that way.

So there's plenty of room not to despair, even if the R<P<S is currently true. Now, I'm open to Vorpal Sword et al.'s argument about how that model does not capture the current meta, but thus far I've not seen anything overwhelmingly compelling; and I've certainly not seen a more compelling model.

What have you seen compelling in the other direction? If the Falcon>Phantom>Swarm setup were true at all wouldn't we be seeing lots of swarms in tournament rankings? OverPSed Falcons are very good against the Phantom as they can hit it decloaked and it can't arcdodge them, and phantoms are good against lower PS ships they can isolate.

Theorist on Team Covenant recently posted over two dozen potential "Spock/lizard" lists (Rebel only -- Imperials coming soon). He said his general approach was to begin with lists that had enough firepower to take on Han and then work from there to deal with Phantoms.

I'm not sure how many of the lists would be truly competitve, but it was a fantastic post regardless.

http://teamcovenant....-rebel-options/

That's beautiful. It's like an alliance of all the shafted pilots coming back en masse to take on the popular ones.