I mean, I suppose the game didn't NEED autothrusters, they could have just banned ACD. Turrets would have gone away and Interceptors would have been playable without Autothrusters.

Bull as soon as 3PO and z-95s came out it was a forgone conclusion that the very fat Han would arise, it's a ship that works against multiple builds and takes alot of effort to kill.

Large turret ships have been a pain long before the phantom.

point my falcon's firing arc at my enemy!!!! blasphemy !!!

fel with auto thrust and stealth still only has 3 hull. ive run this a lot lately and it is good but if he gets hit, he usually has just 1 turn left.

Soontir Fel to be able to equip both Autothrusters and Stealth Device?

Yes.

My solution to super crafty, dodgy ships is so straightforward, I think people miss it:

5-dice attacks. Adv. Proton Torps or Proton Rockets. Or Expose + Range 1 + Jan Ors ability for 6 dice, even. Land a hit and a crit, and that could be all she wrote.

I love to dump the points into at least 1 ship per game that gives an opportunity to roll 5+ dice. If you play your cards right and attack with a focus or TL to spare, it ain't easy to negate that many hits. You have to be patient and save it for the right time/right target, but when paired with a blocker or ion, you can make it happen.

Otherwise, just go for the unavoidable damage - Vader crew, Oicunn, Assault missiles on Blount, or get crafty with bombs (played a game with Emon tonight, the dude with 3-turn or 3-straight bomb drops... awesome stuff). This is my noob take on it, still haven't seen Soontir in action but it sounds like a whole lot of unjustified belly aching in my opinion.

Its not unjustified. Soontir never left the meta. He was still played on a regular basis in Empire lists.

The fact he can use 2 upgrades is the main issue. The Royal Guard title is the problem and is creating a overpowered Soontir with him able to equip both stealth and autothrusters.

The people defending this are people who love Empire for the most part. That's understandable but the truth.

Will the Empire homers complain when every list has Soontir? Uh... no. But if every list had a falcon is moan and groan time isn't it?

The baron will dominate this meta, and the next wave as well with Vader and the tie advanced fix. While I do NOT believe soontir needed any help the tie advanced and Vader stuck on it did. But the advanced is hell powerful with that fix and will definitely be the meta for a while after release.

The Royal Guard title is the problem and is creating a overpowered Soontir with him able to equip both stealth and autothrusters.

Soontir is only overpowered if you're too stubborn to adjust your tactics. Autothrusters is only online when Soontir is out of arc or beyond range 2. If it fails to meet those conditions the upgrade might as well not even exist. Thus the answer is to get him in your arc at range 2 or closer. This is no more difficult than it has been for the past few years.

You say overpowered, but I do not think it means what you think it means.

Its not unjustified. Soontir never left the meta. He was still played on a regular basis in Empire lists.

The fact he can use 2 upgrades is the main issue. The Royal Guard title is the problem and is creating a overpowered Soontir with him able to equip both stealth and autothrusters.

The people defending this are people who love Empire for the most part. That's understandable but the truth.

Will the Empire homers complain when every list has Soontir? Uh... no. But if every list had a falcon is moan and groan time isn't it?

The baron will dominate this meta, and the next wave as well with Vader and the tie advanced fix. While I do NOT believe soontir needed any help the tie advanced and Vader stuck on it did. But the advanced is hell powerful with that fix and will definitely be the meta for a while after release.

I haven't put an Imperial list on the table in a year, and I disagree with most everything you've posted.

I know that is inconceivable to you since your universe is predicated in people being so overly aligned to one faction in a game, that they can't make anything but a home team argument. But the reality is just because you can't put together an objective viewpoint doesn't mean that others share that blindspot.

Quit trolling us with the Imperial "homers" stuff, it just makes you look silly.

Soontir Fel is the man, I'm a rebel player and I still want to be him. Ladies spontaneously get pregnant in his presence and men grow thick chest hair and full mustaches.

The dude bones Wedge's sister and still had Wedge's respect. He defected to the Rebels and defected back to the Empire.

Just look at him

He's awesome. We shouldn't ask if the game should have a Soontir thats worthy of his ace of aces title, instead we should ask why not?

Its not unjustified. Soontir never left the meta. He was still played on a regular basis in Empire lists.

The fact he can use 2 upgrades is the main issue. The Royal Guard title is the problem and is creating a overpowered Soontir with him able to equip both stealth and autothrusters.

The people defending this are people who love Empire for the most part. That's understandable but the truth.

Will the Empire homers complain when every list has Soontir? Uh... no. But if every list had a falcon is moan and groan time isn't it?

The baron will dominate this meta, and the next wave as well with Vader and the tie advanced fix. While I do NOT believe soontir needed any help the tie advanced and Vader stuck on it did. But the advanced is hell powerful with that fix and will definitely be the meta for a while after release.

Royal Guard Pilot title is overpowered?

You sir, just made my day. But I suppose you've got to find a new thing to latch onto now that you've found out that barely anyone buys Autothrusters being broken.

The people defending this are people who love Empire for the most part. That's understandable but the truth.

No, the people defending it are the people who have faith in FFG and the ability to think things through rather than the people, sorry, person, with a strange loathing of one of the game's factions, an inability to view ships in singular as oppossed to part of a faction and an inability to see the Rebels as any more than The Fat Falcon Faction.

Even if you're right (which you're not) and the TIE advanced x1 and TIE interceptor are the new game destroying bits of terrible powercreep design that will bring down the sky, that'd mean those two ships are broken, not the TIE fighter, TIE bomber, Lambda-class, VT-49, TIE defender, Firespray-31, et cetera.

Will the Empire homers complain when every list has Soontir? Uh... no. But if every list had a falcon is moan and groan time isn't it?

Firstly, Soontir Fel takes up a lot less of a list than a Falcon. Secondly, I think Marge and Bart are all right with it. Moe I'm fairly sure isn't cool with it but nobody likes Moe.

The baron will dominate this meta, and the next wave as well with Vader and the tie advanced fix. While I do NOT believe soontir needed any help the tie advanced and Vader stuck on it did. But the advanced is hell powerful with that fix and will definitely be the meta for a while after release.

"No Vader, you are the Meta!"

Might want to research what Metagame actually means, mate.

Meta, meta, meta-sjmeta.

Meta is ever changing; it is local and global, game defining and completely ignorable, profetic and self-fullfilling. All this at once.

Probably there is a meta-studie about meta by now.

Learn the strengths of your favourite craft and you shall be victorious, meta be damned...

Soontir only stayed competitive because whisper was a far bigger threat which let him live longer, no whisper means he pops real quick.

AT will extend his life against turrets but he's still as prone to death to anything that catches him in arc.

If you can't kill a three hull ship without a turret then you really need to take another look at your playstyle.

The people defending this are people who love Empire for the most part. That's understandable but the truth.

Will the Empire homers complain when every list has Soontir? Uh... no. But if every list had a falcon is moan and groan time isn't it?

Well, I complain when every list has a Decimator, and I'm gonna play with the Scum faction for a while (probably until the next wave). So, does my opinion count or there's another reason why it should be invalidate?

If it does count, then again: I'm okay with Soontir being able to equip Autothruster and Stealth.

Its not unjustified. Soontir never left the meta. He was still played on a regular basis in Empire lists.

The fact he can use 2 upgrades is the main issue. The Royal Guard title is the problem and is creating a overpowered Soontir with him able to equip both stealth and autothrusters.

The people defending this are people who love Empire for the most part. That's understandable but the truth.

Will the Empire homers complain when every list has Soontir? Uh... no. But if every list had a falcon is moan and groan time isn't it?

The baron will dominate this meta, and the next wave as well with Vader and the tie advanced fix. While I do NOT believe soontir needed any help the tie advanced and Vader stuck on it did. But the advanced is hell powerful with that fix and will definitely be the meta for a while after release.

Back to trying to call people homers eh, didn't stick last time won't stick now.

Interceptors are so very far from being auto win its laughable that anyone would say they'll dominate the meta.

They'll give turret ships a hard time but not other fighters.

Will the Empire homers complain when every list has Soontir? Uh... no. But if every list had a falcon is moan and groan time isn't it?

The baron will dominate this meta, and the next wave as well with Vader and the tie advanced fix. While I do NOT believe soontir needed any help the tie advanced and Vader stuck on it did. But the advanced is hell powerful with that fix and will definitely be the meta for a while after release.

I actually had to flip on over to rebels for the very large majority of Wave 5 because my local area was nothing but ******* whisper & chiraneau for months. The lack of variety was so palpable you could beat a man to death with it

Fortunately, this rekindled my love for the B and A wings as well as to me discovering the absolutely amazing V.I + R3-A2 + Engine Wes/Luke

Now you're going to have to trust me, but after having played against that ******* PS 9 phantom for the umpteenth time I can say with absolute certainty that Soontir isn't even in the same league. Auto-thrusters makes him more defensively capable against turrets and at range 3, but:

1.) 3 red dice opposed to 4

2.) No option for target-lock at all (if you take stealth + thrusters), especially not a free one you get post attack

3.) No pre-manuever de-cloak to trivially avoid obstacles and blocks

4.) No still getting essentially 3 actions after bumping/going over obstructions (target-lock, re-cloak, free focus)

5.) No crew slot to fit in punishing upgrades such as Rebel Captive

I'd have to say your claim about Soontir dominating the new meta is almost objectively wrong. We can't see the future and the baron is plenty strong, but we can pretty easily tell he's got nothing on the phantom. His only advantage is costing 32 to 35 points to Whisper's 39+, which is real nifty at the low end because you get to shove in two bounty hunters with him

Soontir only stayed competitive because whisper was a far bigger threat which let him live longer, no whisper means he pops real quick.

AT will extend his life against turrets but he's still as prone to death to anything that catches him in arc.

If you can't kill a three hull ship without a turret then you really need to take another look at your playstyle.

Three hull isn't the issue.

4 defence dice with an evade token and possibly AT evades is.

Soontir only stayed competitive because whisper was a far bigger threat which let him live longer, no whisper means he pops real quick.

AT will extend his life against turrets but he's still as prone to death to anything that catches him in arc.

If you can't kill a three hull ship without a turret then you really need to take another look at your playstyle.

Three hull isn't the issue.

4 defence dice with an evade token and possibly AT evades is.

sounds like whisper to me

again, there are an abundance of effects that bypass green dice entirely (I should know...)

they're also why I won't be devoting myself to the new und improved soontir. I'm afraid I've fallen for R3-A2, Tactician and S&V's feedback array

See, it's Stealth Device you're really complaining about.

Four defence dice until he's hit. Autothruster only affects Range 3 and out of arc shots. If it were some sort of god card it would not cost only two points. And unlike the TIE phantom, he's only got a normal 3 die attack.

Let's put it another way, take Autothrusters out of the equation, which for most non-turret ships it is. Soontir PTL Stealth Device. Is that a game breaking ship? It's been around since Wave 2. Game seems fine to me.

What I think's sad is that everyone has so little faith in FFG that they think the meta will be dominated. Like people assuming a third faction means a fourth and fifth, people saw things go a bit awry with the Falcon and the Phantom and assume that'll always happen.

Wave 5, endless complaining about PTL Dash, how he was worse than the Fat Falcon and was going to destroy the game. Where is he? I don't see him.

Then someone started ringing the bells of doom on the TIE advanced fix, and now we've got the Soontir Fel we've had since Wave 2 plus a minor defence buff versus turrets, the TIE advanced and even dual IG-88 all being pegged as the next gamebreaker.

People, there is no game breaker. Why are you buying this game when you clearly have no faith whatsoever in its designers?

Soontir only stayed competitive because whisper was a far bigger threat which let him live longer, no whisper means he pops real quick.

AT will extend his life against turrets but he's still as prone to death to anything that catches him in arc.

If you can't kill a three hull ship without a turret then you really need to take another look at your playstyle.

Three hull isn't the issue.

4 defence dice with an evade token and possibly AT evades is.

And I have seen that fail spectacularly.

Soontir Fel is the king of being oneshot by an A-wing at Range 3 through an asteroid.

Back to trying to call people homers eh, didn't stick last time won't stick now.

Can someone explain this 'homers' malarky?

I get that it's a thinly veiled insult, I just don't understand why.

My thOughts: New Soontir costs 35 points. Three Zs or three TIE fighters cost 36. Therefore, Soontir should live as long and Do similar or more damage than those three cheap ships. IE, as many attacks as it takes Han to clear three bandits is nearly equivalent. Obviously points aren't one for one in this game, but now Soontir and other interceptors can be played and you can even afford to make a mistake and he's not a guaranteed loss.

And he can absolutely still be popped by a single attack, and that is simply not much mess likely than it was before. Now, on a single die, you have a 5/8 chance instead of a 3/8. Not a huge change.

Soontir Fel is the king of being oneshot by an A-wing at Range 3 through an asteroid.

well, not anymore

Long live auto-thrusters and guaranteed green dice results

Back to trying to call people homers eh, didn't stick last time won't stick now.

Can someone explain this 'homers' malarky?

I get that it's a thinly veiled insult, I just don't understand why.

That's what I was wondering.

Back to trying to call people homers eh, didn't stick last time won't stick now.

Can someone explain this 'homers' malarky?

I get that it's a thinly veiled insult, I just don't understand why.

"Homer" as in "loyal to the home team." Normally you see it (or, well, at least normally I see it) as a sports thing. Like, the dude in fantasy football that picks hot names from his local team? He's a homer.