Okay so you all heard about the old Heaver 3 pillars of the wave 4 meta where you have swarms, arc dodgers, and turrets. Well wave 5 and 6 have came and well now there are more variations of turrets, different style of arc dodgers to where they are hybird turrets, oh and the phantom got nerfed and boosted ships now have an upgrade that cannot be given to every ship. So well we got these 3 popular builds.

• Fat Turrets
• Arc dodgers
• Cannon Snipers

Fat Turrets have been spoken to death, Generally they want to be at range 1 and are not worried about arc dodgers that much because they can shoot out of arc. There are many variations of these list that include arc dodgers such as RAC+soontir/whisper or even list that are arc dodgers themselves such as Super Dash.

Arc Dodgers are ships that have positioning correction actions so that it takes much of the guess work out of the planning phase. once you see where everyone has moved you already know where the firing arcs are and what actions you need to get out of those. A large selection of green maneuvers PTL and a high pilot skill is what makes the best arc dodges.

Cannon Snipers Most famous are the Brobots, IG88 B&C/D w/FCS+HLC+title. although Super dash could be thrown in this category with the HLC weapon however if equipped with Mangler then it is just a turret. These have a great selection of maneuvers that there are no blind spots which one can plan to move for in the dial selection. At range 3 especially with good agility and the autothrusters they excel at long range combat doing more damage and having more defense.

So lets take a look at Ideal positioning for these 3 builds.

• Fat Turrets Range 1
• Arc dodgers Range 1 Out of Arc
• Cannon snipers Range 3 or (Range 2 out of arc if IG-88)

So as you see the composition place what positioning is strongest for you. The Arc dodgers while have a decent firepower they need to get within range 1 to get that extra attack dice to finish off their opponents so that there are less arcs to dodge and less red dice thrown at them as they are fragile. That can be a problem against ships that can shoot out of arc, especially if they don't have the initiative bid.

Turrets again want to be at range 1 and generally have some durability and damage mitigation upgrades so that giving extra dice to the opponent won't be so detrimental. However that damage mitigation can be overtaken so like arc dodgers they want to remove as much read dice against them as possible.

Cannon Snipers don't care for the extra dice as their HLC gives them 4 red dice but even more so it takes away the extra evade dice at range 3. If they are at range 3 and not up against a sniper then that is more damage mitigation for them. Even better if they have autothrusters. However Cannons have firing arcs which can be dogged and if you are using the Outrider title everyone knows of that blind spot called the doughnut hole. An Arc dodger can close into that and be at range 1 where it is always out of arc.

So as you see there still sort of is a paper rock sicissors with composition however the composition now dictates what positioning you will need for your ships. Arc dodgers want to get up close but in a way they cannot be shot at as they are fragile. Turrets want to be up close and quickly finish off taking advantage of their jousting efficiency. Cannon Snipers want to be at range 3 taking advantage of their agility bonuses and removing bonuses from other. There is some counter play to the disadvantage list. Arc dodgers against turrets keep their range 3 distance to get more damage mitigation. Cannon Snipers try to put arc dodgers at range 2 instead of 3. Turrets fly more defensively looking to avoid firing arcs and let their attack flexibility continue to give them efficient jousting values. But playing these styles are sub optimal.

So those that say positioning ships like Arc dodgers are dead in this meta thanks to turrets, clearly don't understand the positioning aspect of X-wing. There is more to the value of the ship than their little number given to them by Maj Juggler . (I also want to extend my congratulation to Dr. Randal on his PhD and thank him for his work on list Juggler, I think he is doing a great job despite the poke and banter I just gave.)

These sort of classifications are meaningless.

Fat turrets with Engine Upgrade, especially Dash, are the best arc dodgers in the game.

The (non-turret) arc dodger category is pretty much just Interceptors and A Wings. Phantom nerf doesn't really allow one to dodge arcs as effectively as before.

'Cannon sniper' is a bad category. Firstly, it's 95% dual IG lists so why not just call it Dual Aggressors? Secondly, a super Phantom with Gunner and FCS is pretty much the same thing. Range one Corran Double Tap FCS shenanigans would also fall under a similar category of "hey look let me dump 18 hits on your ship every time I fire even though I bumped and lost my action".

I'd categorize ships/lists into 3 categories, based on how viable the ships are in the current meta:

The "super" ship Category. This contains Super Dash, Super Corran, the other Fat Turrets, dual IG's, etc. Pretty much all of the game ruining stuff that's on a tier far above "normal" ships. Can your ship stack 4 attack dice with gunner and FCS? Is its HLC a turret? Does it have 13 health, a turret, and a pile of free evades and the inability to take crits? Yep, you're flying a super ship.

The "viable normal" ship category. This is pretty much just Soontir/Carnor and generic B Wing spams, with some stuff like super Xizor/Guri thrown in. These are normal ships that are powerful enough to compete with super ships but not too powerful that they completely shut out everything else.

The "normal" ship category. This is everything else, prime examples would be the X Wing, Starviper in general, M3-A Interceptor, TIE Fighter, etc. These ships move once per round and get one action per round. These types of ships typically have no hope against an equivalent amount of points sunk into a single ship in the super category. You have 5 TIEs left vs your opponent's unscathed Fat Turret? You've lost.

Just had a thought, sorry if this in not strictly related to this threads discussion. It seems to me the crew cards can take the super ships over the top in power. Rebel captive on decimator, gunner on most pancakes, C3-P0 on super chewie, that sort of thing. I guess my point is there is a cumulative effect of power on the super ships, its not one thing but a combination of upgrades that makes them bordering on OP (this is not hating the super ships, pointing out that they are dominating the meta because they are so good).

Anyway, back to my point i wanted to make, what if damage cards could take out crew or even an engine upgrade?, im talking about critical damage cards. Chewie would still be immune to it but every other pancake in the meta would be fair game. I dont for a minute think FFG would do this but it would give you a chance to disable something on the super ship right? A lesser 'fix' might be ordnance that targets crew or ship upgrades specifically, now that would be interesting.

Would this change the game much, no probably not. would it give the small ships a way to get a lucky shot that hurts the pancakes, yep.

Yea I think the damage deck could use an update. Though it's not likely, and also would be hard to pull off.

It needs cards that can affect the following:

Astromechs

Crew

Modifications

Systems Slot

basically agree with para, the archetypes are fairly meaningless

Every single ship listed is an effective arc-dodger, only the PWTs are arc-dodgers that can't be arc-dodged without thrusters

really, the arch-types should be

Arc-dodgers (Pwts - don't need to do much of anything apart from rollnig red dice)

Arc-dodgers (Autothrusters - need to arcdodge PWTs to trade favorably; actually have arcs to manage or they can't do ****)

Arc-dodgers (Dash - needs to range 3 to trade favorably with Pwts, needs to arc-dodge IGs; needs to stay the **** out of range 1)

Corran (R2-D2, *****)

These sort of classifications are meaningless.

Fat turrets with Engine Upgrade, especially Dash, are the best arc dodgers in the game.

/thread

These sort of classifications are meaningless.

Fat turrets with Engine Upgrade, especially Dash, are the best arc dodgers in the game.

The (non-turret) arc dodger category is pretty much just Interceptors and A Wings. Phantom nerf doesn't really allow one to dodge arcs as effectively as before.

'Cannon sniper' is a bad category. Firstly, it's 95% dual IG lists so why not just call it Dual Aggressors? Secondly, a super Phantom with Gunner and FCS is pretty much the same thing. Range one Corran Double Tap FCS shenanigans would also fall under a similar category of "hey look let me dump 18 hits on your ship every time I fire even though I bumped and lost my action".

You obviously didn't read the post and are still focusing only on the dice numbers.

Yes a Phantom/Soontir at range 1 has a same attack (where the phantom has 1 more dice) as an HLC at range 3 but the thins is that with an HLC you do not want to be at range 1! If you are all about the position game then you need to know about where to put the positions for your ships. You have organized your ships into 3 those that are OP those that you think are balanced and those that suck. You are not focusing on the strategy and meta as a whole. So let me break down the meta in its components and then work from there.

There are 3 major factors in determining the meta in X-wing, because these tend to in chronological order you could almost break them into 3 stages.

• List Composition
• Ship Positioning
• Dice Statistics

Right now you only focusing on 2 things, List Composition and Dice Statistics. Ship positioning still plays a part even with turrets as if facing the cannons then you are trying to position the ship so that it doesn't take as many shots.Still position is important because there are ships like turrets and arc dodgers that work best at range 1. Even Corran is sort of like an Arc Dodger because of the barrel roll action and range 1 gives it the double tap 8 shot dice. Still needs to be close to range 1 much like characteristics that Soontir and Whisper has. A little bit tougher than those 2 but still want to be range 1 and out of arc. So lets take a look at the individual stages of the meta.

List Composition: This is more than this one ship is OP a ship may be a center piece of a list but it is the whole list that makes it or breaks it. This is the one thing that is all over the forums as a miniatures game players have much control over this but players only control this at one stage that is right before the tournament. After this stage you no longer have any control over your composition. All match ups are determine by rankings and with swiss you generally want to rank up high with the MOV. Sure there are match ups in where a composition has a stronger advantage against a composition of another list AKA the paper rock scissors but once this stage is done the player has no control over so planning is the most important part in this stage. However as said before it is not the end all as if you don't know how to fly this list or fly poorly it will fail. Also if you are flying a popular list the chances for mirror matches are good and there list composition will have no advantages or disadvantages.

Ship Positioning: The one thing that players have the most control over in the game. This goes down to even turn 0 with obstacle placement (which now is also a part of list composition). Ships can be most effective at certain placements where as some ships are at a disadvantage. Example Whisper and Soontir want to be range 1 out of arc so that they can get the most damage while taking the least amount of fire (none will be preferable). Where as IG-2000 B with HLC and Autothrusters wants to be at range 3 where it has the advantage in both red and green dice but keep the other ship inside their arc. If they end up inside the firing arc it is not really that big of a deal as range 3 still give them their bonuses. Ship positioning is the one thing that goes on throughout the game and players must know the best positions for their ships to give them the most advantage. The Dial guess work is done here but arc dodgers can remove the guess work with their after dial movement abilities. Turrets don't focus on offensive positions but rather defensive positions.

Dice Statistics: AKA the jousting values. Sometimes known as the great equalizer this is the thing that players have the least control over. Sure there are modifiers and also positioning can effect dice statistics (which also gives more strength to the positioning aspect of the game) but it all comes down to a dice roll sometimes. everyone knows that a single lucky (or unlucky) roll can mean the difference between victory or getting board wiped. Granted someone that is good with statistics can tend to figure out which odds are higher but all the knowledge of the odds wont prevent someone from rolling 8 blanks in a row.

If you want to be good at playing this game you need to start looking at all the ships in the same way Armada players look at theirs! Where as they take a look at the dice statistics at all ranges and all arcs. Find out which range gives your ship the best value and compare it to match ups that tend to be unfavorable. You might find your Soontir might want to be at range 2 out of arc instead at range 1 out of arc to have more survivability against a Ion Cannon Turret.

As for list rankings strong average weak, well there will always be compositions that just don't cut it. No one really want to play average competition so those 3 rankings are irrelevant. The 3 ranking tiers for lists are as follows

1. The Top Tier competitive lists that are efficient and win tournaments
2. Competitive lists that are strong and win matches, but doesn't match the efficiency of Tier 1 lists and tends to be defeated by them.
3. Average list or non competitive lists. These focus more around a theme or a gimmick instead of competitive lists. Some are designed to accomplish a league achievement such as destroy a ship with a proton bomb or ion a ship off the table. Some are just to see what is possible in a game such as dealing 10 stress tokens or rolling 6 dice in a single attack. They tend to win only on a random chance.

There so I covered Meta Stages, List rankings for compositions and already covered positioning in the OP.

Nobody needs to read the post.

So those that say positioning ships like Arc dodgers are dead in this meta thanks to turrets, clearly don't understand the positioning aspect of X-wing. There is more to the value of the ship than their little number given to them by Maj Juggler . (I also want to extend my congratulation to Dr. Randal on his PhD and thank him for his work on list Juggler, I think he is doing a great job despite the poke and banter I just gave.)

Thank Sozin (Lyle Hayhurst), he wrote the code for List Juggler. I was just the inspiration! Although I do email hound the TOs to submit Regionals results.

Yea I think the damage deck could use an update. Though it's not likely, and also would be hard to pull off.

It needs cards that can affect the following:

Astromechs

Crew

Modifications

Systems Slot

yup, why cant you lose an astromech or crew member to a crit?

engine upgrade should not be damage proof. they could simply errata a card to say it can destroy engine upgrade.

i think ordnance taking out other upgrades would work well, why not go that way instead of introducing a new damage deck? seems like a quick and easy solution wout changing the game much and might make ordnance a lil better too.

So those that say positioning ships like Arc dodgers are dead in this meta thanks to turrets, clearly don't understand the positioning aspect of X-wing. There is more to the value of the ship than their little number given to them by Maj Juggler .

Arc Dodgers aren't dead, thanks to auto-thrusters

those that say otherwise clearly don't understand the PWTs can shoot you if you can shoot them regardless of positioning, unless they're on an asteroid

the only arc-dodgers that can survive a PWT are PWTs (dice will decide), and Dash (far superior at straight exchange while at range 3, with 4 red dice against unmodified agility while he gots at by 3 red dice against his 3 agility)

there's also corran, but he's not really an arc-dodger as much as a "focus + evade + r2-d2, good ******* luck"er

that's the unfortunate reality of a 360 degree range 1-3 attack, until FFG comes in and does something about it

Just had a thought, sorry if this in not strictly related to this threads discussion. It seems to me the crew cards can take the super ships over the top in power. Rebel captive on decimator, gunner on most pancakes, C3-P0 on super chewie, that sort of thing. I guess my point is there is a cumulative effect of power on the super ships, its not one thing but a combination of upgrades that makes them bordering on OP (this is not hating the super ships, pointing out that they are dominating the meta because they are so good).

Anyway, back to my point i wanted to make, what if damage cards could take out crew or even an engine upgrade?, im talking about critical damage cards. Chewie would still be immune to it but every other pancake in the meta would be fair game. I dont for a minute think FFG would do this but it would give you a chance to disable something on the super ship right? A lesser 'fix' might be ordnance that targets crew or ship upgrades specifically, now that would be interesting.

Would this change the game much, no probably not. would it give the small ships a way to get a lucky shot that hurts the pancakes, yep.

Been saying this for months and have been completely ignored.

I can see it happening though. Once the gamespace is crowded with upgrades and ridiculous crew cards, they'll put a way in to remove them from play.

I'm all for an updated damage deck! I've been trying to convince people of this all the time. Feels bad that crew can't blow up on ship. Crew getting messed up on the Falcon is definitely canon.

Sorry to not respond to the original post!

The cannon sniper archetype is an interesting one, and it's true that we see a lot of that in the meta. You've got some interesting analysis, but I disagree with the points you make on turrets -- Range 1 of another squadron is not where they want to be. Turrets have to escape arcs to make up for their terrible jousting efficiency, and if they are being shot at by a whole squadron, they want to be at Range 3. They're fine with being at close range with one or maybe two ships, but Range 1 is generally where big ships and turrets don't want to be.

MajorJuggler, on 25 Jul 2015 - 7:51 PM, said:

Marinealver, on 25 Jul 2015 - 6:04 PM, said:

So those that say positioning ships like Arc dodgers are dead in this meta thanks to turrets, clearly don't understand the positioning aspect of X-wing. There is more to the value of the ship than their little number given to them by Maj Juggler . (I also want to extend my congratulation to Dr. Randal on his PhD and thank him for his work on list Juggler, I think he is doing a great job despite the poke and banter I just gave.)

Thank Sozin (Lyle Hayhurst), he wrote the code for List Juggler. I was just the inspiration! Although I do email hound the TOs to submit Regionals results.

Congratulations on getting your PhD!!!