Quick update from the Fargo Regionals: Sean W. (2nd Place) was flying:

Doomshuttle (24 points)

Soontir Fel (35)

PtL

AT

Stealth

Title

Whisper (40)

VI

FCS

Intel Agent

ACD

99 points

How many players were at the Mesa regional?

And has Hsu done a battle report?

Here's what I wrote down about the Top 8 matchups at the Tacoma regional:

1.

Han Solo + Lone Wolf, Gunner, C-3PO, Falcon

Wild Space Fringer + Mangler Cannon, Outrider

vs.

Chiraneau (didn't record upgrades, pretty standard)

Soontir Fel + PTL, Royal Guard, Autothrusters, Stealth Device

2.

Airen Cracken + Squad Leader

Bandit Squadron + Ion Pulse Missile

Bandit Squadron + Concussion Missile

Bandit Squadron + Concussion Missile

Bandit Squadron + Concussion Missile

Bandit Squadron + Concussion Missile

vs.

Oicunn + Predator, Rebel Captive

Saber Squadron + PTL, Autothrusters

Saber Squadron + PTL, Autothrusters

3.

Chewbacca + PTL, Kyle Katarn, C-3PO, Falcon

(didn't record rest, believe it was a YT-2400)

vs.

Oicunn + Predator, Rebel Captive, Ysanne Isard

Patrol Leader + Gunner, Darth Vader

4.

Dash Rendar + Lone Wolf, Recon Specialist, Heavy Laser Cannon, Outrider

Corran Horn + PTL, R2-D2, Fire-Control System, Hull Upgrade

vs.

Ten Numb + Veteran Instincts, Advanced Sensors, Mangler Cannon

Blue Squadron + Fire-Control System

Gold Squadron + Ion Cannon Turret, R3-A2, BTL-A4

Bandit Squadron

#3 is Chewie as you have it and Leebo + LW + Outrider+Mangler + Rec. spec

Yeah think about what your asking you are putting more and more power into a 'lucky' or unlucky dice roll. I rather have the higher cost of ordinance or be overcosted than a meta where everyone is bring the torps and knocking your bests ships out after 2 rounds while your missiles blanked out. So be careful what you ask for,,,,

4-dice attacks are not the shock-and-awe they were in Wave 1. Heavy Laser Cannons are fielded on about every other table in tournament play. The game has a 4-dice attack ship now. Honestly, the HLC is about the biggest evidence for how badly torpedoes and missiles are over-costed.

At first glance, these 3 cards are almost identical.

• All produce 4-dice attacks.
• All have a Range 2-3 restriction.
• All are secondary weapons (signified by the "Attack:" text).

Further inspection, though, reveals that two of them are grossly inferior, requiring you to discard a target lock and discard the card to roll those 4 dice. In exchange for this, these inferior cards provide a small chance to score additional hits. For the privilege of rolling this one time, 4-dice attack, you pay more than half the cost of the HLC. If your opponent rolls well enough on defense - or you just don't roll that well on the attack (not unlikely given that you just spent your target lock) - those are simply points you could have spent on something more useful. Costed as they are, you could "almost buy your own ship for that".

Extra Munitions is going to help this imbalance, and - as a TIE Bomber fan - I am all for it. I'm ready to throw Concussion Missiles and Prox Mines on my Bombers and get my butt shot off trying to land them.

But the days that 4-dice attacks should be this expensive are long past. They died the day the Heavy Laser Cannon was printed in Wave 2. FFG has seemingly acknowledged this - for certain ships - by creating Extra Munitions, but the horrible action inefficiency of trying to land solid ordnance hits is harder to avoid without errata. The fact that Head Trauma is designed to pass off extra actions to missile carriers underscores this fact better than any forum post ever could.

personally, you could make everything but the ion pulse and possibly prockets unlimited in usage, and they'd still be mostly inferior to the HLC

personally, you could make everything but the ion pulse and possibly prockets unlimited in usage, and they'd still be mostly inferior to the HLC

Quite true. The requirement that you spend a lock to fire them means that you have to either (a) build a list like Head Trauma, designed to pass off multiple actions to a single ship so you can roll modified dice, or (b) spend multiple turns setting up the shot.

I disagree that Concussion missiles and Proton Torpedoes are grossly inferior. To truly understand why, you have to look a lot deeper than just "how many dice do I get to roll" and "how much does it cost". The game is much more complex than that, and as I talked about in my tactica it often comes down to making your opponent guess who to target. You also have to consider who can actually use those upgrade cards. A Heavy Laser Cannon is only worth '7' points, but you obviously can't put it on any ship.

Who can use the upgrades

The cheapest ships with a missile slot are 12 points for Scum and Rebels, and 16 points for Empire, making those ships 16 and 20 points respectively, when given a 4 point upgrade to fire 4 attack dice. Another thing to note is that these ships all only have an attack value of 2, so firing off these missiles literally doubles your maximum potential for damage.

The cheapest ships that have cannon slots are the B wing, 22pts; the Lambda Shuttle, 21 pts; and the Scyk, which is the cheapest at 17 points. Once you finally go through the work of putting your precious HLC on these ships, they become a staggering 29, 28, and 24 points, respectively. There is a reason why you will almost never see any of these ships on the table: They cost way more than they are worth. Realistically you might get 1, perhaps 2 shots off with them. So, if you think about it that way, you just paid 7 points for a 1 time use item. Not worth it in my book, I would rather have a 16 or 20 point ship that gives my opponent something to think about.

The HLC becomes much more valuable when put on an extremely durable and maneuverable ship, so your chances of firing it multiple times are greater. This means the IG, YT2400, Firespray, and to an extent the Defender are your only viable HLC platforms at the moment. Would you give any of those ships ordnance? Maybe, but only if you needed it to do a certain role, like Prockets for an Outrider, for example.

personally, you could make everything but the ion pulse and possibly prockets unlimited in usage, and they'd still be mostly inferior to the HLC

This would ruin the game. You would have endless threads about how 7 Z95s with Homing Missiles ruined the game. People would never fly a Millennium Falcon again, and then I would have to build an entirely different list to try to kill that meta. Unacceptable

But in all seriousness, Unlimited usage of missiles would turn X-Wing, which is very balanced right now, way too hard in the direction of missile spam.

Flying ships with ordnance well takes practice

The biggest complaint I hear about ordnance is that it takes multiple turns to set up well. Yes, it does, but that does not make it bad, that makes you bad if you can't use it. Most players don't like to change the way that they fly, regardless of what ship they're playing. Every turn their thought is "How can I get most of my guns pointed at my enemy THIS turn?" While that is great when you're flying something simple, like a Rookie Pilot, or BBBBZ, it doesn't work when you have ordnance.

You actually have to change your approach and play style when you fly ordnance. This does not mean that it needs to be fixed, it means you don't know how to use it right.

How many players were at the Mesa regional?

And has Hsu done a battle report?

How many players were at the Mesa regional?

And has Hsu done a battle report?

I think Richard's too busy getting ready for his next regional.

Were there any streams from the event? I'd really love to see or hear about how this thing flew.

How many players were at the Mesa regional?

And has Hsu done a battle report?

I think Richard's too busy getting ready for his next regional.

Were there any streams from the event? I'd really love to see or hear about how this thing flew.

The videos will all be posted on our Phoenix X-Wing channel in the coming weeks. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2QpEnYrbAK18-sDVTkmJ7g

How many players were at the Mesa regional?

And has Hsu done a battle report?

I think Richard's too busy getting ready for his next regional.

Were there any streams from the event? I'd really love to see or hear about how this thing flew.

From what I saw of it, he generally started out flying in formation. Y-Wing and Bandit in front, Biggs and Wedge in the back. The tight formation allowed Draw Their Fire to work best, as Wedge could sponge crits off anyone who took them and regain shields through R2D2. After Biggs took a few hits, he'd break off. This would force his opponent to choose whether to continue to pursue Biggs, or to stay on the unscathed main force.

The Y-Wing would usually be a bit of a lone wolf, loading himself down with stress tokens in order to take out the big hitters, while Wedge and the Bandit would work as a bit of a team.

I'd like to see a couple of videos of this list flying, too! Amazing result with not so considered ships, kudos!

Here's what I wrote down about the Top 8 matchups at the Tacoma regional:

2.

Airen Cracken + Squad Leader

Bandit Squadron + Ion Pulse Missile

Bandit Squadron + Concussion Missile

Bandit Squadron + Concussion Missile

Bandit Squadron + Concussion Missile

Bandit Squadron + Concussion Missile

vs.

Oicunn + Predator, Rebel Captive

Saber Squadron + PTL, Autothrusters

Saber Squadron + PTL, Autothrusters

Conflicting info -- he has listed that was his Top 16 matchup, not his Top 8. Can someone confirm which was which?

How many players were at the Mesa regional?

And has Hsu done a battle report?

I think Richard's too busy getting ready for his next regional.

Were there any streams from the event? I'd really love to see or hear about how this thing flew.

The videos will all be posted on our Phoenix X-Wing channel in the coming weeks. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2QpEnYrbAK18-sDVTkmJ7g

Great! Are there plans to get the info into List Juggler? It was run as two seperate Swiss tournaments so that makes things interesting. Email me at [email protected] if you still have the cryodex files.

I disagree that Concussion missiles and Proton Torpedoes are grossly inferior. To truly understand why, you have to look a lot deeper than just "how many dice do I get to roll" and "how much does it cost". The game is much more complex than that, and as I talked about in my tactica it often comes down to making your opponent guess who to target. You also have to consider who can actually use those upgrade cards. A Heavy Laser Cannon is only worth '7' points, but you obviously can't put it on any ship.

Of course, no more than you can put missiles (or torpedoes) on any ship.

The cheapest ships with a missile slot are 12 points for Scum and Rebels, and 16 points for Empire, making those ships 16 and 20 points respectively, when given a 4 point upgrade to fire 4 attack dice. Another thing to note is that these ships all only have an attack value of 2, so firing off these missiles literally doubles your maximum potential for damage.

For one attack roll, that's correct. Since you only get one shot at it, you obviously want to maximize its potential. You will be unable to fire with a target lock - you have to spend that - so you'll be stuck with any blanks after the first. If you double up on actions somehow (PTL, Cracken, Squad Leader) or spend a couple of turns lining up the shot, you should be able to fire with a a Focus token.

The cheapest ships that have cannon slots are the B wing, 22pts; the Lambda Shuttle, 21 pts; and the Scyk, which is the cheapest at 17 points. Once you finally go through the work of putting your precious HLC on these ships, they become a staggering 29, 28, and 24 points, respectively. There is a reason why you will almost never see any of these ships on the table: They cost way more than they are worth. Realistically you might get 1, perhaps 2 shots off with them. So, if you think about it that way, you just paid 7 points for a 1 time use item. Not worth it in my book, I would rather have a 16 or 20 point ship that gives my opponent something to think about.

The HLC becomes much more valuable when put on an extremely durable and maneuverable ship, so your chances of firing it multiple times are greater. This means the IG, YT2400, Firespray, and to an extent the Defender are your only viable HLC platforms at the moment. Would you give any of those ships ordnance? Maybe, but only if you needed it to do a certain role, like Prockets for an Outrider, for example.

I follow the logic here, and don't disagree. (You do occasionally see Blues with HLCs, but they tend to get focus fired down pretty quickly as you point out.)

All ordnance isn't bad: Proton Rockets are pretty good, of course, as well as Ion Pulse Missiles and a few others. My beef is with most torpedoes and Concussion Missiles; spending the target lock makes them inferior, in my opinion. You have a non-zero chance of rolling multiple blanks, and you can only alleviate one (on the Missiles anyway, you're just hosed on most torpedoes).

I hate unmodified dice rolls, because I usually end up blanking out on them. That, more than anything else, drives me away from one-time use weapons like Concussion Missiles. That and how challenging they can be to use (more below).

The biggest complaint I hear about ordnance is that it takes multiple turns to set up well. Yes, it does, but that does not make it bad, that makes you bad if you can't use it. Most players don't like to change the way that they fly, regardless of what ship they're playing. Every turn their thought is "How can I get most of my guns pointed at my enemy THIS turn?" While that is great when you're flying something simple, like a Rookie Pilot, or BBBBZ, it doesn't work when you have ordnance.

You actually have to change your approach and play style when you fly ordnance. This does not mean that it needs to be fixed, it means you don't know how to use it right.

I can see both sides of this argument.

I agree that using ordnance is a challenge and takes lots of practice, the same way that learning any list really well takes time and effort. The game is almost never you moving your ships and your opponent happily obliging you by moving exactly where you expected him to.

My personal experience has been that small amounts of ordnance on the right pilots - Jake Farrell, for example, with some Proton Rockets - can be highly effective. He's a real threat in that situation: moving late, needing only a focus token to throw a bunch of dice at one ship. He probably has PTL so he could do it with a TL and a Focus in the right situation.

I have struggled more with large amounts of ordnance on low PS pilots, because you rarely get more than one round to fire them against a skilled opponent. This comes back around to what I was saying earlier about having multiple actions to pass off, and why, I suspect, Cracken is so effective in your list. A low PS pilot will move first, and is unlikely to find himself in range to take a target lock prior to the enemy moving. Thus, he'll have to take a focus and (hopefully) pick up his target lock from Cracken when the time comes. This would allow you to get a couple of missiles off in that round.

But if you remove Cracken from that squad - let's say you're flying Imperial and you're trying this with Bombers instead - the situation changes pretty radically. Your Bombers moved up and focused, trying to stay at long range (because that's where their missiles are effective) but the enemy is still out of range. By the time the opponent's squad is in range for a TL, your Bombers are already getting shot up, and that focus token you took won't carry over next round. You could slow roll and try to hold the range open so you can pick up the target lock and at least get the missiles off, but your opponent is smarter than that and either runs right up in your face or simply blows past you. Now you've got your TL, but you're still chasing and hoping that he ends up far enough away from you after his movement so you can get your focused Concussion Missile shot.

Again, I'm not trying to take anything away from you, I'm simply trying to explain how I interpret most people's frustration with the early munitions. Speaking in generalities, they are horribly action inefficient, and as such, enable your opponent to react to them appropriately and attempt to deny you the shots you are trying to engineer if you field them on low PS pilots. Forcing you to have spend a target lock to fire them almost kills them from a gameplay standpoint. I don't profess to be the best X-Wing player, but I have tried a variety of munitions on low PS ships (Bombers and Advanceds, mostly) and basically never get to fire them before I get shot off the board. I'm not the only one with this experience. That leaves a bad taste in people's mouths when there are so many other fun list options out there to explore.

I think it is awesome that you made them work, and I hope more people figure it out (myself included). The game needs that variety. I wish Imperials had an equivalent to Cracken so they could pull off something similar to this; Fleet Officer might work, but is unlikely to cut it.

EDIT: Small edit in the second to last paragraph.

I think it is awesome that you made them work, and I hope more people figure it out (myself included). The game needs that variety. I wish Imperials had an equivalent to Cracken so they could pull off something similar to this; Fleet Officer might work, but is unlikely to cut it.

The Imperial version of this is Colonel Jendon, with title & possibly a Weapons Engineer. The main problem is that is either 29 or 32 pts, before any additional upgrades to Jendon, and it lets you opponent know who you are targeting way in advance.

I wish Imperials had an equivalent to Cracken so they could pull off something similar to this; Fleet Officer might work, but is unlikely to cut it.

Edit: Howlys ability is only primary rerolls, my bad

guess we've all forgotten jonus exists

then again, lack of TL support once against makes HLCs superior in regards to his usage

guess we've all forgotten jonus exists

then again, lack of TL support once against makes HLCs superior in regards to his usage

Jonus isn't bad, and I have a squad designed to (ab)use him with Bombers and missiles. The trouble remains the target locks when moving from low PS.

I have experimented with Jendon and ST-321, and while it can work, it takes a while to pass out those locks, and once the scrum really starts all bets are off. Jendon is also fairly expensive in that configuration, limiting how many Bombers you can take.

Jonus and Extra Munitions play well enough that you can do real work with a bomber swarm again. I'm hoping that those new missiles and torps will push it into competitive territory.

I wish Imperials had an equivalent to Cracken so they could pull off something similar to this; Fleet Officer might work, but is unlikely to cut it.

Howlrunner with Squad Leader and her ability sounds like a good Imperial equivalent to this strategy. You could take Colonel Jendon as well with Fleet Officer to pass TL and focuses. Gifts for everyone!

Fleet officer doesn't work because the key is giving the TL later, not the focus and you want the TL from Jendon anyway, so fleet officer, IMO, would be a wasted three points. Howlrunner is more vulnerable and really needs her action for herself, nor does her reroll work on secondary weapons. Jendon could work, but he's more easily blocked, more expensive, etc, as are the missile carriers out currently for the imperials.

Jonus and Extra Munitions play well enough that you can do real work with a bomber swarm again. I'm hoping that those new missiles and torps will push it into competitive territory.

Me too.

I disagree that Concussion missiles and Proton Torpedoes are grossly inferior. To truly understand why, you have to look a lot deeper than just "how many dice do I get to roll" and "how much does it cost". The game is much more complex than that, and as I talked about in my tactica it often comes down to making your opponent guess who to target. You also have to consider who can actually use those upgrade cards. A Heavy Laser Cannon is only worth '7' points, but you obviously can't put it on any ship.

Who can use the upgrades

The cheapest ships with a missile slot are 12 points for Scum and Rebels, and 16 points for Empire, making those ships 16 and 20 points respectively, when given a 4 point upgrade to fire 4 attack dice. Another thing to note is that these ships all only have an attack value of 2, so firing off these missiles literally doubles your maximum potential for damage.

The cheapest ships that have cannon slots are the B wing, 22pts; the Lambda Shuttle, 21 pts; and the Scyk, which is the cheapest at 17 points. Once you finally go through the work of putting your precious HLC on these ships, they become a staggering 29, 28, and 24 points, respectively. There is a reason why you will almost never see any of these ships on the table: They cost way more than they are worth. Realistically you might get 1, perhaps 2 shots off with them. So, if you think about it that way, you just paid 7 points for a 1 time use item. Not worth it in my book, I would rather have a 16 or 20 point ship that gives my opponent something to think about.

The HLC becomes much more valuable when put on an extremely durable and maneuverable ship, so your chances of firing it multiple times are greater. This means the IG, YT2400, Firespray, and to an extent the Defender are your only viable HLC platforms at the moment. Would you give any of those ships ordnance? Maybe, but only if you needed it to do a certain role, like Prockets for an Outrider, for example.

personally, you could make everything but the ion pulse and possibly prockets unlimited in usage, and they'd still be mostly inferior to the HLC

This would ruin the game. You would have endless threads about how 7 Z95s with Homing Missiles ruined the game. People would never fly a Millennium Falcon again, and then I would have to build an entirely different list to try to kill that meta. Unacceptable

But in all seriousness, Unlimited usage of missiles would turn X-Wing, which is very balanced right now, way too hard in the direction of missile spam.

Flying ships with ordnance well takes practice

The biggest complaint I hear about ordnance is that it takes multiple turns to set up well. Yes, it does, but that does not make it bad, that makes you bad if you can't use it. Most players don't like to change the way that they fly, regardless of what ship they're playing. Every turn their thought is "How can I get most of my guns pointed at my enemy THIS turn?" While that is great when you're flying something simple, like a Rookie Pilot, or BBBBZ, it doesn't work when you have ordnance.

You actually have to change your approach and play style when you fly ordnance. This does not mean that it needs to be fixed, it means you don't know how to use it right.

Preach! Love it.

guess we've all forgotten jonus exists

then again, lack of TL support once against makes HLCs superior in regards to his usage

Jonus isn't bad, and I have a squad designed to (ab)use him with Bombers and missiles. The trouble remains the target locks when moving from low PS.

I have experimented with Jendon and ST-321, and while it can work, it takes a while to pass out those locks, and once the scrum really starts all bets are off. Jendon is also fairly expensive in that configuration, limiting how many Bombers you can take.

Richard Hsu was running an effective squad last year that made use of Jonus (with Squad Leader), two Scimitars with Concussion Missiles, and Darth Vader with an Assault Missile. It struggles a bit in the current meta simply due to Jonus' inability to hand out Target Locks against targets higher than PS6. Vader might be able to make it work now with an Experimental Interface, especially once the Raider and Expanded Munitions hit.

I've played 3 x Scimitar w/ Jonus lists quite a bit and in a Store Championship. It did very well, except against Phantoms. I've found it can also do poorly against IG-88...if they roll well for their evades. Until Extra Munitions comes out, you can be screwed if your one ordnance just misses. I guess you can always go Munitions Failsafe, but I have a hard time with points.

Darkhorse wrote a fantastic guide to using low PS Tie Bombers. It's important to understand the "Rule of 11" and be able to predict your opponet's move. The trick is to get your ship into range for a TL for just one turn. You try to get right oustide shooting range, but then move into range to grab the TL. Most likely your opponent will move and you will be at R1 and not able to fire. That's OK. In that one turn, it should be hard for your opponent to kill one Tie Bomber. 2 Evade dice and 6 Hull means you might get shot up, but most likely not die. The next turn, you get a 5 K-turn. Sure, you are stressed, but you have the TL already. Unless your opponent bugged out, you can probably fire off your missiles at your opponent.

If you are really good, you also dropped 4 Seismic Charges while you flip around. I once caught Dash like that. He hit 4 Charges and then 2 Concussion Missiles and died on the 2nd turn of shooting.

Personally, once Extra Munitions is out, it would be less optimal to use Jonus. Just get 4 x Scimitars w/ EM, Homing Missiles, and Seismic Charges. The Homing Missiles will work better than Jonus. You won't have to fly in formation, which means you can have an easier time getting the TL and hitting some ships.

Here's what I wrote down about the Top 8 matchups at the Tacoma regional:

2.

Airen Cracken + Squad Leader

Bandit Squadron + Ion Pulse Missile

Bandit Squadron + Concussion Missile

Bandit Squadron + Concussion Missile

Bandit Squadron + Concussion Missile

Bandit Squadron + Concussion Missile

vs.

Oicunn + Predator, Rebel Captive

Saber Squadron + PTL, Autothrusters

Saber Squadron + PTL, Autothrusters

Conflicting info -- he has listed that was his Top 16 matchup, not his Top 8. Can someone confirm which was which?

How many players were at the Mesa regional?

And has Hsu done a battle report?

I think Richard's too busy getting ready for his next regional.

Were there any streams from the event? I'd really love to see or hear about how this thing flew.

The videos will all be posted on our Phoenix X-Wing channel in the coming weeks. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2QpEnYrbAK18-sDVTkmJ7g

Great! Are there plans to get the info into List Juggler? It was run as two seperate Swiss tournaments so that makes things interesting. Email me at [email protected] if you still have the cryodex files.

I have all the sqaud lists, and pairnigs. We used Tome and not crydoex. I have all the data and I will be getting the information to you as soon as I am able.In addition to running X-Wing I had other responsibilities to attendt to at the Expo and Satruday alone was 19 hours at the convention center. Without the help of my amazing volunteers, Jonahtan Gomes and Aryn Sargent (thank you!) there is no way I would have been able to pull it off. In short, the numbers are coming, I just need to catch my breath first.