Imo to be really honest, I see Brobots as an extension of the big fat large ships with gunner capacity, boost and large amounts of damage mitigation. I don't like them any more than any of the fat turrets on the field.

The current swarm IS BBBBZ. Its a meta dependent thing. Tie Swarm isn't the only swarm. BBBBZ concentrates fire better in this meta. The Brobots 3green dice is actually really tough to chew through with just ties.

Honestly, I don't really know whats fun about playing a tournament where you face 6 fat turret lists in a row. Do you find that fun?

I think. sort of along the lines your are getting at, that IG 88 and updated Firesprays, as well as tournament scoring, have moved the meta less toward turrets specifically and more toward lists centered around large bases in general. There are still a couple of small small super ships (Horn, Fel) that are seen consistently and can have a list built around them, but beyond that, small ship centric lists just aren't as competitive nor as dominant as the large ship lists.

There's a lot of variety among the large based ships winning and small base ship lists have snuck in occasionally, but the game is definitely dominated by large bases right now. If there were a small ship list that had an overall advantage over those types of lists consistently, a good player would have found one by now, but there just isn't one that holds the current consistent advantages that the large base lists do.

Maybe not even large bases. Maybe just large numbers of upgrades.

Sure, and the ships that can take the most upgrades (a least in terms of useful variety) are the large bases. Either way, I don't see the trend changing anytime soon to allow large numbers of small ships a significant place in the competitive scene.

Don't you think 4-hog builds are fairly competitive? They've certainly faired well when people bring them. I think people just don't own 4 Y's.

I think enough people own enough Y's, it's more so that getting enough Blaster Turrets is a problem and using Autoblasters to fill in for them is kind of meh. Ion Turrets are also kinf of meh, not enough damage. Blaster Turret is kind of an expensive upgrade on eBay, and you only get one in each HWK.

Also, the one time someone someone won an SC or Regional with 4 Y WIngs doesn't make up for the 15 times it was won by a 2 ship Turretwing list.

I think that much of what annoys Turretwing haters such as myself about Turretwing isn't that a certain list archetype dominates, it's that the dominating list archetype neuters what we enjoy about the game, that is manuevering your ships, having to maneuver in such a way that you don't bump/stress yourself so that you can perform actions, etc.

It also creates these annoying nuanceless binary situations where you have 2 B wings left and your opponent has their fat turret left. You've lost. Or your opponent has a single health left on their Falcon and time gets called.

If this game went back to swarms and B wing spams dominating it would be more enjoyable. Yes, the ideal lists would just be as many ships as possible, or the firepower and health of that many ships compressed into fewer ships (like BBBB(Z) lists), but maneuvering would be of actual importance, and taking actions would be of actual importance. You'd also be able to field a wider variety of things like M3-A's and stuff.

The suggestion that turret maneuvers don't matter is, as always, complete nonsense. If I play 4x and you play a poorly-maneuvered Heaver World's list I'll win pretty easily. Maneuvers matter.

Stating it for the hundredth time won't make it true.

You don't have to consider getting things in arc, thus you can arc dodge willy nilly and have a shot anyways with your dumb turret. Yes, it's hyperbole to say that maneuvers don't matter at all with a turret. They matter of course, but far, far less than manuevering your normal arc based ship does.

Hyperbole very rarely leads to reasonable discussion.

Also, the one time someone someone won an SC or Regional with 4 Y WIngs doesn't make up for the 15 times it was won by a 2 ship Turretwing list.

I bet a higher fraction of top-half 4Y made the cut than top half turrets at regionals. A LOT of people are bringing turrets. A LOT of them aren't doing well.

Sure, and the ships that can take the most upgrades (a least in terms of useful variety) are the large bases. Either way, I don't see the trend changing anytime soon to allow large numbers of small ships a significant place in the competitive scene.

Don't you think 4-hog builds are fairly competitive? They've certainly faired well when people bring them. I think people just don't own 4 Y's.

Not really, no (According to List Juggler, Ys in general are much less common in elimination rounds than in Swiss). They're appearances and success have mostly come in smaller international tournaments where there seemed to be a very different meta. Their biggest success in the US was in NE on May 2nd very early in the tournament season (unless there was a recent one?), which also seemed to be light on the large ships. Contrary to what people have said or predicted, I think regionals are moving away from small ships and not toward them.

Also, the one time someone someone won an SC or Regional with 4 Y WIngs doesn't make up for the 15 times it was won by a 2 ship Turretwing list.

I bet a higher fraction of top-half 4Y made the cut than top half turrets at regionals. A LOT of people are bringing turrets. A LOT of them aren't doing well.

Again, according to List Juggler, a higher percentage of decimators, YT 1300s (and IG 88s) are making the finals than are in the field total. The only ones seeing a drop are the YT 2400s.

Also, the one time someone someone won an SC or Regional with 4 Y WIngs doesn't make up for the 15 times it was won by a 2 ship Turretwing list.

I bet a higher fraction of top-half 4Y made the cut than top half turrets at regionals. A LOT of people are bringing turrets. A LOT of them aren't doing well.

Well yes, all the bad players who hopped on the Turretwing bandwagon aren't winning because they are bad at the game. But they're still much easier to fly, so when you have two players of equal skill, one of which has a Turret, they are at an advantage.

Just for the sake of information

17 of the 29 regionals winners documented in Majorjuggler's thread were fat turrets. 12 were not, which is just over 40%. Only 8 of those lists had no large based ships, which would be about 28%.

It is worth pointing out that small based ships have made a bit of a comeback

With the title of this thread, I didn't expect a recap of how you made top 8 at Regionals... Using a fat turret.

Just for the sake of information

17 of the 29 regionals winners documented in Majorjuggler's thread were fat turrets. 12 were not, which is just over 40%. Only 8 of those lists had no large based ships, which would be about 28%.

It is worth pointing out that small based ships have made a bit of a comeback

This information is important but I'd be curious what the "area" meta was, influence that goes into list building. While I don't want to throw stats to the side, I do think something like Nationals would represent what the current meta is (as regionals are still somewhat localized.) It is important also who is running the squads, like mentioned earlier players do hop on the bandwagon and don't perform well for a number of reasons. Winners aren't always as important either, I'll have to look what squads were making the elimination rounds because that is what is most important.

Building a squad that can get you into the elimination rounds is much more important than building a squad you think can win it all (if you take a minute to think you can follow the logic on that). I think few people think about how loosing a ship affects their MOV or what they may fight in earlier rounds.

With the title of this thread, I didn't expect a recap of how you made top 8 at Regionals... Using a fat turret.

Yea but I felt I related to the title because I was more or less apart of how the tournament turned out.

If it's large bases in general then the problem is not the large base itself, which is usually an inherent disadvantage, but the point forting. Go up against a heavy ship or go up against three smaller ships and do the same damage and you'll either kill two of the three or not kill the heavy. In addition to the victory distortion this has a potent psychological effect.

In essence, the timed game is biased heavily in favour of a minimum of ships. Large ships can best take advantage of this.

To some extent I agree, but they are also to able build themselves to be less reliant on actions and EU allows them more movement to escape arc than small ships get.

IG 88 is a straight up discount on a small base fighter for those stats, before even including excellent abilities or upgrades.

If you're comparing IG-88 to a TIE defender you might want to reconsider that.

What all those upgrades do is allow large bases to compete against the vast additional firepower and tactical flexibility of multiple smaller ships. If you nerfed them to the point where the tournament meta balanced out then large ships would be slaughtered in the casual format. The problem is not the ship design, it's the tournament design artificially favouring fewer ships. If a dual TIE defender squad was BBBBZ viable in an untimed game, it would be storming the tournament metagame.

I left STAW due to the broken-ness of turrets in that game. In x-wing at least they are priced better.
But you are right the meta right now is "Some kind of fat turret" and something else (Sometimes another turret) and that is really frustrating to me. I have decided to switch to Armada for a few months once I have played in Regionals. I will probably jump back in once wave 7 comes out.
I did notice that your frustration seems to be that you have to play AGAINST "fat turret" but your list is also a "Fat Turret" list...

Things to try:

1) Play in a different meta

2) Break out of your comfort zone and play fat-free lists, encourage others in your meta to play fat-free lists

3) Encourage people in your meta to not read these forums, or at least take things said here with a grain of salt, they perpetuate the problem

4) Don't post rants about how fat turret lists are unstoppable, it encourages people to take more fat turret lists.

Looking through regional data, there are plenty of examples of metas that aren't dominated by fat turret lists. There are also some that have a high number of fat lists that weren't won by a fat list. Here are some examples of regionals that contain 3 or fewer fat turret lists in the top :

http://lists.starwarsclubhouse.com/get_tourney_details?tourney_id=452

http://lists.starwarsclubhouse.com/get_tourney_details?tourney_id=450

http://lists.starwarsclubhouse.com/get_tourney_details?tourney_id=445

http://lists.starwarsclubhouse.com/get_tourney_details?tourney_id=439

http://lists.starwarsclubhouse.com/get_tourney_details?tourney_id=418

http://lists.starwarsclubhouse.com/get_tourney_details?tourney_id=415

http://lists.starwarsclubhouse.com/get_tourney_details?tourney_id=387 (winner is a turret but not "fat")

More seen here:

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/174268-2015-regionals-results/

.

Just for the sake of information

17 of the 29 regionals winners documented in Majorjuggler's thread were fat turrets. 12 were not, which is just over 40%. Only 8 of those lists had no large based ships, which would be about 28%.

It is worth pointing out that small based ships have made a bit of a comeback

This information is important but I'd be curious what the "area" meta was, influence that goes into list building. While I don't want to throw stats to the side, I do think something like Nationals would represent what the current meta is (as regionals are still somewhat localized.) It is important also who is running the squads, like mentioned earlier players do hop on the bandwagon and don't perform well for a number of reasons. Winners aren't always as important either, I'll have to look what squads were making the elimination rounds because that is what is most important.

Building a squad that can get you into the elimination rounds is much more important than building a squad you think can win it all (if you take a minute to think you can follow the logic on that). I think few people think about how loosing a ship affects their MOV or what they may fight in earlier rounds.

That's the thing, if you look at the top 8's, especially in sequential order, you do see variety beginning to pop up. The thing that bugs me is the assumption that there will be immediate change. You only get that when something majorly powerful happens (say, the release of the Phantom).

I wouldn't say it is the nature of turrets vs arc dodgers but how arc dodgers affected the meta then hybridization of lists that came out. If you want to understand the meta you have to take a look at the whole history. So lets go wave by wave shall we.

Core and Wave 1 saw the first X-wing and at that time premier competitive play was not exactly as popular as it is now. Still the dominating list end up being the Tie Swarm with the 7 Tie Howl-swarm being one of the most popular.

Wave 2 brought out the large base ships. Falcon and Firespray started to appear and turrets were brought into the fold. Also to note, fast maneuverable ships such as the A-wing and Tie Interceptor showed up but one lacked the firepower and the other lacked the durability to become much. However the Falcon still died fairly easy to TIE swarms. Biggs started to gain popularity becuase it can cover against falcons and against swarms as well protecting high value damage dealing ships like Wedge. Hans pilot skill of 9 helped it out a little but the point cost for one 3-4 dice attack could never match four 2-3 dice attacks. So the meta had still the powerful Tie Swarm and now seeing Biggs walks the dogs list up, and Hans shot first was sort of a list but it had not rise in dominance.

Wave 3 brought in some tough ships with the B-wing and the Shuttle and the TIE bomber. These big ships brought in some serious durability tough lacking in damage reduction and mobility. However because they can get stuck in farily well you started to see more of a furball meta with all ships clustering about in the middle with shuttles and B-wings with adv sensors being able to stop ships from action in overlapping and still being able to take their action with Adv Sensors allowing them to shoot their way out of that mess. Buzzsaw and Doom shuttles were able to cut swathes through such clusters. Still blocking is a strategy that low pilot skill academy pilots of the TIE swarm can do effectively well. So the TIE swam still remain dominate in the Wave 3 cluster-stuck meta.

Between the waves there were some releases that brought in some new upgrades. Imperial aces became a good supply of the Push the Limit upgrades so Imperial players did not need to get a rebel A-wing for each interceptor they wanted to fly. It also gave them Royal Guard pilots allowing interceptors more customization options. The CR-90 epic expansion pack brought in C-3PO giving the Falcon some more damage mitigation to help it stay in longer. However the CR-90 was a huge ship pack costing $90 giving some controversy with some players shouting Pay To Win, still C-3PO was not effective up against 5-8 attacks. Also around this time people were beginning to use mathematical probability statistics to predict how much damage a ship can deliver and how much it can endure before being eliminated.

Wave 4 came along and a new ship really did bring a revolutionary tactic that saw its way into the top tier of the Meta. The TIE Phantom with the cloaking and decloaking mechanics make it difficult to pinpoint where the ship might end up next. Thus the Arc-dodgers have made it into a competitive build. This ship was capable of squeezing between the firing arcs of the Swarm and the low pilot skill of the TIE swarm meant that one academy pilot could not effectively joust alone with a phantom's high firepower leaving the hapless tie fighters being picked off 1 by 1 by the Tie Phantom. Imperial players that favored a high maneuverability builds with TIE Interceptors switched to TIE Phantoms as a flanker. The Rebels got their swarm ship but in face of this new Swarm Killer it didn't reach the top. To counter the Phantom's arc dodging capabilities a ship that had no firing arc came into play thus Han Shot first with the higher pilot skill and the C-3PO effectively removing 1 hit from a single attack per turn came into dominance as long as he didn't face a TIE swarm. Thus the psudo rock paper scissor meta where it seemed that Swarm was vulnerable to the Phantom which was vulnerable to Fat Han which was vulnerable to Swarms was born. Still not exactly paper rock scissors when Paul Heaver won the worlds using his hypothesis that Fat Han can handle swarms better than swarms can handle phantoms or phantoms can handle Fat Han, so he focused his build to kill mirror matches which helped against swarms as well with R2-D2 and C-3PO.

Wave 5 brought 2 large ships that were turrets but changed the ways certain lists operate. The Outrider was sort of a hybrid arc-dodger/big-turret ship that worked well against swarms but not against maneuverable ships like the Phantom (sort of opposite of the way that Fat Han worked). The Imperials who were the arc-dodgers with their TIE Phantom and the TIE Interceptors had their turret envy appeased with their very own Fat Turret ship in the form of the Decimator. However they still had their high mobility ships so you started to see a Hybrid list of Decimator Phantom start to show up with the Decimator being good against high mobility ships and the Phantom being good against swarm lists. More o this hybridization of list builds will come in following waves. Also to note that Rebel Aces came before making A-wing cheaper but also brought the end of munitions as they became too expensive to put on high pilot skill ship and not effective enough with damage to be used.

Wave 6 brought a new faction which still has yet to find its place among the cheap agile Imperial fighters and the versatile durable Rebel fighters. however there are 2 things noteworthy of this list. The first is Autothrusters which can only be equipped on ships with boost. Due to engine upgrade, the boost icon in the upgrade bar was more of a open modification slot with the 4 points already added to the ship's point cost. Now ships with a boost icon in their action bar gained more value. This was intended to give the TIE Interceptors some better survivability against turreted ships. Next came the new method in list hybridization with the Aggressor, the newest large ships. Most large ships had high endurance but little mobility and were low agility depending on upgrades to give them the needed damage reduction for their point cost. The Agressor was a large ship with 8 hitpoints worth of shields and hull and had the new S-loop maneuver which allowed it to arc dodge and almost always have an attack. The Autothrusters also gave it effective survivability against turrets.

Today With competitive play now becoming a more popular scene and everyone studying the statistical data that is available for every store, regional, and premier tournament matches people are focused on the scoring more than ever. As popularity grows the need for a fair elimination system in large events came much more prevalent. The Margin of Victory scoring system was made to rank players with equal win:loss ratios in order to determine which one out of the many was the best and deserved to continue from the elimination rounds of the Swiss brackets. Point fortress which were high durability ships that can hold over half of the lists points were made to protect ships as elimination rounds end at the time limit of 60 minuets. These point fortress builds were able to take out one or two ships then stay until time with enough points int the big ship to make up for the loss of the smaller support ships. These point fortress means less loss of Margin of Victory giving the opponent only one option in winning and that is to table the opponent before the 1 hour time limit. Also a note the Phantom Nerf which was the 3rd most powerful ship build didn't really see a rise to TIE Interceptors as the Phantom still out performs in Arc dodging, damage mitigation and firepower even after the autothrusters came out. Due to the rise in variance of arc dodger lists clumsy swarm list which were dominant at the dawn of the game have now been evaporated to the the evolving meta and the power creep that has been placed on the point fortresses.

So I wouldn't say turrets are the dominate factor of the meta. After all we have Y-wing and HWKs with turret upgrades and they don't do anything, we also have the Outer Rim Smuggler and the YT-2400 without the Outrider are also big turrets but due to their lack of firepower they do not have strength to make it into the top tier of the competitive meta. Point fortresses in the form of fat-turrets/arc-dodgers are the dominant part of the meta. Take a look at the history and you will see how turrets at first were not dominating and how the change has seen them rise into power. but not all turrets are dominating the game, just certain types of turrets are heavy in the balanced of power.

Would it be awful if we just banned Engine Upgrade on large ships?

Keep in mind, Double Falcons WERE dominating in the Wave 2 era until they changed the victory conditions for Full Wins. When it was the original 33 pts, TIE swarms were knocked out of competition if they were paired up with another TIE swarm.

Things to try:

1) Play in a different meta

2) Break out of your comfort zone and play fat-free lists, encourage others in your meta to play fat-free lists

3) Encourage people in your meta to not read these forums, or at least take things said here with a grain of salt, they perpetuate the problem

4) Don't post rants about how fat turret lists are unstoppable, it encourages people to take more fat turret lists.

Looking through regional data, there are plenty of examples of metas that aren't dominated by fat turret lists. There are also some that have a high number of fat lists that weren't won by a fat list. Here are some examples of regionals that contain 3 or fewer fat turret lists in the top :

http://lists.starwarsclubhouse.com/get_tourney_details?tourney_id=452

http://lists.starwarsclubhouse.com/get_tourney_details?tourney_id=450

http://lists.starwarsclubhouse.com/get_tourney_details?tourney_id=445

http://lists.starwarsclubhouse.com/get_tourney_details?tourney_id=439

http://lists.starwarsclubhouse.com/get_tourney_details?tourney_id=418

http://lists.starwarsclubhouse.com/get_tourney_details?tourney_id=415

http://lists.starwarsclubhouse.com/get_tourney_details?tourney_id=387 (winner is a turret but not "fat")

More seen here:

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/174268-2015-regionals-results/

.

So you just, like, collect things together, or what?

Sure, and the ships that can take the most upgrades (a least in terms of useful variety) are the large bases. Either way, I don't see the trend changing anytime soon to allow large numbers of small ships a significant place in the competitive scene.

Don't you think 4-hog builds are fairly competitive? They've certainly faired well when people bring them. I think people just don't own 4 Y's.

Not really, no (According to List Juggler, Ys in general are much less common in elimination rounds than in Swiss). They're appearances and success have mostly come in smaller international tournaments where there seemed to be a very different meta. Their biggest success in the US was in NE on May 2nd very early in the tournament season (unless there was a recent one?), which also seemed to be light on the large ships. Contrary to what people have said or predicted, I think regionals are moving away from small ships and not toward them.

Also, the one time someone someone won an SC or Regional with 4 Y WIngs doesn't make up for the 15 times it was won by a 2 ship Turretwing list.

I bet a higher fraction of top-half 4Y made the cut than top half turrets at regionals. A LOT of people are bringing turrets. A LOT of them aren't doing well.

Again, according to List Juggler, a higher percentage of decimators, YT 1300s (and IG 88s) are making the finals than are in the field total. The only ones seeing a drop are the YT 2400s.

Also, the one time someone someone won an SC or Regional with 4 Y WIngs doesn't make up for the 15 times it was won by a 2 ship Turretwing list.

I bet a higher fraction of top-half 4Y made the cut than top half turrets at regionals. A LOT of people are bringing turrets. A LOT of them aren't doing well.

Well yes, all the bad players who hopped on the Turretwing bandwagon aren't winning because they are bad at the game. But they're still much easier to fly, so when you have two players of equal skill, one of which has a Turret, they are at an advantage.

That depends completely on the matchup. Do you really think Fel/Chiraneau is easier to fly than 4Y? lol

Keep in mind, Double Falcons WERE dominating in the Wave 2 era until they changed the victory conditions for Full Wins. When it was the original 33 pts, TIE swarms were knocked out of competition if they were paired up with another TIE swarm.

This sort of brings up an example of how the MOV is forcing point fortresses such as fat-turrets into the top tier.

I'll add something to the debate here. What if ordinance was actually good? Wouldn't this give small ship lists a way to combat Fat Turrets? Just saying.

Would it be awful if we just banned Engine Upgrade on large ships?

Seeing as it comes with a large ship...yes.

If it's large bases in general then the problem is not the large base itself, which is usually an inherent disadvantage, but the point forting. Go up against a heavy ship or go up against three smaller ships and do the same damage and you'll either kill two of the three or not kill the heavy. In addition to the victory distortion this has a potent psychological effect.

In essence, the timed game is biased heavily in favour of a minimum of ships. Large ships can best take advantage of this.

To some extent I agree, but they are also to able build themselves to be less reliant on actions and EU allows them more movement to escape arc than small ships get.

IG 88 is a straight up discount on a small base fighter for those stats, before even including excellent abilities or upgrades.

If you're comparing IG-88 to a TIE defender you might want to reconsider that.

What all those upgrades do is allow large bases to compete against the vast additional firepower and tactical flexibility of multiple smaller ships. If you nerfed them to the point where the tournament meta balanced out then large ships would be slaughtered in the casual format. The problem is not the ship design, it's the tournament design artificially favouring fewer ships. If a dual TIE defender squad was BBBBZ viable in an untimed game, it would be storming the tournament metagame.

We'll have to disagree. Vessery, arguably the best defender (and I like defenders), at base cost is a point cheaper than an IG88 at the same PS. The IG 88 has an extra hull and shield, engine upgrade, and a better dial. It's not even close (that's 11 points of upgrades). Is being on a big base really worth that much of a discount? I could go through the same exercise with other elite fighters.

Tournament design does muddy the waters, but I think that turrets and other large bases do well in a casual setting, too, and I see plenty of them not relying on running out the clock to win.

I'll add something to the debate here. What if ordinance was actually good? Wouldn't this give small ship lists a way to combat Fat Turrets? Just saying.

This is something I've thought about as well. It will be interesting to see how Extra Munitions and some of the better suited ships for such an upgrade come into play. It is quite possible that while people are "naysaying" the new upgrades and pilots, they might be quite effective against fat lists.

Redline is especially nice, having two target locks on the same ship makes him a much better candidate for the OG proton torpedoes, we have new Advanced Homing Missiles coming out and Plastic? Torpedoes.

Note he is also PS 7 and no EPT option but cost wise he seems very effective, maybe a good pair with someone else who is 9 like vader with Decoy.

It's been noted the TIE advanced is slightly better than another ship with 3 shots (just use b-wing for example) while using ATC. That may also help burn down fat lists due to the Crit generation.

Lists or ships that work against fat turrets consist of one thing, the ability to negate damage down to 0 or 1 (damage control) and deal consistent damage back at the defender (IE Swarms, BBBBZ, Ywing turrets ect.)

Let's also note the new Twin laser cannon coming out, I think against turrets it will be an effective tool, you can protect the pocket with other small ships and deal 2 damage almost every turn depending on the shooting order.

please note that I am trying to find new ways to fight FAT turrets not all turrets

I'll add something to the debate here. What if ordinance was actually good? Wouldn't this give small ship lists a way to combat Fat Turrets? Just saying.

Off on a tangent. The ordnance list would be viable if there was a "damage race" situation in which you have to catch up on jousting ships. However the amount of damage that one shot weapons cause and the amount of damage mitigation that can just remove those attacks is what keeps them off the competitive list.

Back in the days of the swarms they were seen as something that has the potential to 1 shot a TIE Fighter which helps the damage race, you gain 1-2 attack dice and they lose 2-3. Now that cannons are out you have a permanent gain to attack dice and don't need to discard a ship that can be turtled against. You can easily turtle against a missile or torpedo attack.

But there are plenty of list out there that just are not viable. Control builds, heavy missile/torpedo builds, mini-swarms all those are just not competitive in this meta. Now if the game were designed that these became dominating in the game well of course they will displace the 1 or 2 Decimator, Fat Han, Corran-Dash or so on so you bring up some what of a non-debatable point. But it is a what-if at best and not really worth discussion in this thread.