Personally? No, i dont think Scum is the hardest anymore. I think it goes

1. Rebels

2. Scum

3. Empire

Scum has so, so many options now it's pretty crazy. Empire is super easy to build a squad for, basically every ship with the exception of the TIE Bomber/Punisher and the Firespray can easily be made to work.

This is, of course, assuming you have most everything Scum has in it's arsenal. if you don't have very many ships, obviously it's going to be hard to build a squad.

So looking though this thread scum get picked as the hardest to build for quite a bit. Now wave 8 is here is this still the case? Would this make scum the hardest to play? I ask as a new player interested in specialising in scum, though I'm not planning on running dual ig88s or a wolfpack of jump masters. I currently have a core set a falcon and a firespray had some success with rebels even my losses were close, not so much luck with Imps.

If you aren't running IGs or some variant of the Wolfpack why are you playing Scum again?

So looking though this thread scum get picked as the hardest to build for quite a bit. Now wave 8 is here is this still the case? Would this make scum the hardest to play? I ask as a new player interested in specialising in scum, though I'm not planning on running dual ig88s or a wolfpack of jump masters. I currently have a core set a falcon and a firespray had some success with rebels even my losses were close, not so much luck with Imps.

If you aren't running IGs or some variant of the Wolfpack why are you playing Scum again?

That does allow for quite a bit of variety, though. 2 U-Boats can team up with many different ships to make a better list than flat spam of three, the loadouts of the Boats themselves have lots of wiggle room with the incredible scum crews. IGs have multiple Elite upgrades to choose from as well as some differences with who flies with B and who has which cannons and the ability to use Tractor Beams in the second cannon slot.

So looking though this thread scum get picked as the hardest to build for quite a bit. Now wave 8 is here is this still the case? Would this make scum the hardest to play? I ask as a new player interested in specialising in scum, though I'm not planning on running dual ig88s or a wolfpack of jump masters. I currently have a core set a falcon and a firespray had some success with rebels even my losses were close, not so much luck with Imps.

If you aren't running IGs or some variant of the Wolfpack why are you playing Scum again?

Because Fett, Bossk, Dengar, Eval, Kavil, Renthal, Kihraxzes and FUN Hwk's!

So looking though this thread scum get picked as the hardest to build for quite a bit. Now wave 8 is here is this still the case? Would this make scum the hardest to play? I ask as a new player interested in specialising in scum, though I'm not planning on running dual ig88s or a wolfpack of jump masters. I currently have a core set a falcon and a firespray had some success with rebels even my losses were close, not so much luck with Imps.

If you aren't running IGs or some variant of the Wolfpack why are you playing Scum again?

Partly cost, partly because I don't really like the look of the agressor. Partly because I want some varity. If I have a jumpmaster I want it to be a unique part of my squad along with a rag tag band of pirates.

Rebels are in a tricky place IMHO with the rise of the Alpha Strike. Previously strong lists such as Rebel regen, dual pancakes and even the much-despised quad-TLT are all penalised particularly harshly by Ordnance due to low agility and spike damage. This means that many rebel players almost automatically put aside 26 points for Biggs+R4-D6 simply to be able to survive an alpha-strike and still carry on with the plan. That in turn constrains other build options.

With Imperial Veterans due next week, Gamma Squadron Veterans will give the Empire an efficient, cost-effective ordnance boat too. I think we will need to see over the course of the summer what rebel builds come out on top in the new meta. Dash/Ghost seems popular right now and may continue to be so. Dash can BR/Boost to deal with torpedo arcs to some extent while a Ghost with Reinforced Deflectors will typically require most (if not all) of a triple U-boat list's torpedoes to burn down.

Of course there is still much more to the meta than just U-boats (or even Ordnance). Palp Aces are still rocking the Imperial players' world and the newly improved Defenders look fun too. Interesting times....

you can probably out alpha a scout list with rebels if you build janky synergy.

pilots such as Cracken (homing missile crackshot chips) can enable some painful salvos from certain pilots such as homing missile miranda, or you can run someone like Horton to fart out fully modified proton torps as well. You can have all 3 in the same list to fart out 13 dice at a target with 2 crackshots to back them up

or you could just spam other z-95s

problem is other match-ups after wards

problem is other match-ups after wards

That is the heart of the matter. After their torpedo strikes are spent, Scouts are still PWT ships with 9 health behind 2 agility with ridiculous action efficiency from their Agromechs. Not stellar ships but normally solid enough to mop up the left-overs from their alpha-strike.

I put together a fun Rebel Alpha strike list that I plan to try out soon with Garvin, Dutch and Esege. It should pack a decent alpha strike at PS6 but once the torpedos have gone it is just an X-wing, Y-wing and K-wing. I could probably drop Garvin to Cracken to save a few points while retaining the same overall effect. This would give me a few extra points to spend on the other 2.

miranda has the late game to be a part of an alpha strike and Cracken is at least relatively cheap

problem is it's very difficult to find other pilots. Horton costs an arm and a leg, but he's the only guy who can fire off re-rollable proton torp shots without butchering your point allowance

proton jakes is at least a half-way decent late game against non-aces, so that's something.\

Miranda

*TLTs

*Homing

*Chips

(40)

Cracken

*crackshot

*homing

*chips

(25)

Jake Farrel

*ptl

*Test pilot

*VI

*prockets

*thrusters

[33]

2 points for bid or tactician/extras on miranda

• attack shuttle doesn't do ordnance
• Bs don't have re-rolls for their torpedoes without outside help
• Es only have one torp slot; suck
• HWKs don't do torps (though Jan is great in an alpha list because of her ability)
• Ks pack homing, but Esege needs to focus and miranda is just out and out superior
• t-70s need integrated; one torp slot
• VCX already has a 4-dice primary, so there's an option
• Xs need integrated; one torp slot
• the YTs are just laughable for this role
• the Y doesn't have ways to secure re-rolls for their torps outside horton or 4 points of r2-d6 predator
• and that leaves us with more headhunters

I was just curious what everyone's opinion is on which they believe to be the faction which is the hardest to use when building a competitive list, your opinions?

I have a slightly different bend on it as a relatively new player trying to grasp all of the layers of details and strategies that make this game so amazing.

So, for a brand-new player, I'd say the hardest faction to be competitive was easily the Empire and the quickest to fly well and win with was Rebels with Scum in the middle.

As a player who may be coming out of the novice stage, I'd say the Empire is getting easier, but it is still the hardest to actually be competitive during an entire game due to the focus in flying, dodging, token-ing, etc. The Empire's ships are wonderful, but pre-Vets, they are, for the most part, unforgiving ships; mistakes will hurt you the most when flying these agile ships. As far as the other factions, I think the Scum is the easiest for me to be consistently competitive with and the Rebels are now the tasty marshmallow in the middle.

Who knows, as I improve, the Empire may get to where it's balanced or they bring the hurt the easiest.....or the newer releases may shuffle this up?

- signed the "not-so-nearly-as-much-a-novice-as-before"

xizor with 5 Z-95s fills a competitive niche pretty easily

ditto thug life

I'm interested in trying this list. How do you kit that out Fick?

xizor with 5 Z-95s fills a competitive niche pretty easily

ditto thug life

I'm interested in trying this list. How do you kit that out Fick?

**** man it's been a while

I don't even fly naked Zs anymore, though that's what they used to be

Xizor (vi, virago, fcs, thrusters) (37)

5 pirates (60)

[97 total]

now, it's

same Xizor (37)

Zuckuss (VI, dengar, title) (33)

2 blacksun soldiers (feedback) [30] or Manaroo (adaptability, feedback, boba/int agent)

So, for a brand-new player, I'd say the hardest faction to be competitive was easily the Empire and the quickest to fly well and win with was Rebels with Scum in the middle.

For playing with, I tend to agree. Many of the Empire's ship are glass cannons that require practice to fly well.

But building a list is slightly different from flying it. The Empire has plenty of strong ships that can work well either on their own or in combination. Palp Aces has the agility to deal with Ordnance while Tie Swarms have the numbers to survive it and still dish out damage. Imperial Ordnance such as GSVs will shoot before U-boats giving a chance to knock one out early on. I would say that building a list with Empire is fairly easy once you decide what flavour of list you are going for.

I know I keep banging on about Ordnance but I think that after 8-waves of being underpowered, it has finally become viable. This in turn has made alpha-strike lists viable and I believe the effect of this on the meta will only become clear over the summer. I am not saying this is good or bad, merely that I think it is a bigger change than TLTs were in wave 7.

Or maybe the sky is just falling in all over again.

rebels, easily.

Every list feels like its missing something very important or is just too expensive. I really dislike the Ghost but its the only **** ship rebels have i dont feel like im gimping myself focusing my list on. And they dont have any "ace" builds where i run 3-4 similar power ships that arent just terrible to begin with, unlike Imperial.