Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Vader Crew rarely see later rounds in tournaments before this change? Plus, it seems to me people usually take vader to deal a crit to an arc-dodger, not tack on lots of damage consistently with attacks.

And don't forget the new damage deck. All crits will effect every ship, so that will definitely make Vader Crew more appealing even though the new large ship rule will bring him down a notch.

Thing is, you can't point fort a B-wing very well. Their strength isn't survivability, it's survivability for cost.

Four B-wings is a lot of health to chew through, but you lose MoV in four increments, not two.

And you've made my point as why B-wings are the winner of this nerf.

Have I?

B-wings can't point fort, there simply aren't sufficiently few in number. Eight behind one is easy to focus down and they can't stack mitigation like a Falcon can.

They're a winner in the sense that the point fort strategy (kill one ship then hide and win on the clock) has been damaged severely, but they're no more a winner than any other ship.

Many people don't understand the reason for the "nerf" and think it's an actual nerf. Personally, I'm happy about that, because the Mighty Groupthink will see it as a nerf and the cycle of 2 ship lists and complaining about 2 ship lists will end. But it's not, it's ironing out a wrinkle in the tiebreaker system.

I'll attempt to explain. (WARNING: Loooooooooooooong post.)

Take an eight TIE swarm versus a Brobot squad (two IG-88s for those who don't know). Assume that the players are of equal skill with their squad such that the game is balanced, and that dice luck is the same for each player. In an untimed game, they have an equal chance of winning.

For games on a clock you need a tiebreaker, and we use the number of squad points scored (how many points you killed). You exceed the opponent's score by 12 points and you score a Full Win, you exceed your opponent's score by less than that, Modified Win. A Full Win is worth 5 Tournament Points and a Modified Win is worth 3, and these points are used to choose the Top 8 who play elimination rounds.

It's also used to calculate Margin of Victory, which is 200 if you won outright and 100 + your score if you won (or lost) on the clock. MoV is used to decide between players with equal Tournament Points. It's important, but less so than Tournament Points.

If you didn't follow that explanation, I recommend reading the official rules here: https://images-cdn.fantasyflightgames.com/filer_public/76/0f/760f56d7-a26c-44c9-b954-7de94378fbff/x-wing_tournament_rules_v321.pdfbecause it's vital you follow this part for me to explain the next bit, and I don't know how well I explained it.

Back to our Brobots and our TIE Swarm. If they complete the game before the clock runs out, then one player gets a Full Win (and full MoV). Assuming our players are of equal skill, our squads are balanced and Lady Luck plays no favourites, they should have an equal chance of winning, correct?

If the game finishes within the 75 minutes, this is a completely fair match up. However, if it goes to tiebreaker the game suddenly becomes heavily biased in favour of the Brobots.

Assume our equally matched players wear down each other's squads at an equal rate: by the time the Brobot has lost a quarter of his list (half the health of one of his 50pt Brobots) the TIE swarm has lost two TIEs (about 25 points). If the game ends here, the Brobot player scores a Full Win, whereas had it completed it would in theory be a draw and in practice a very close call.

If both players destroy half of each other's squads, they both score 50 points and it's a draw. If both players destroy 75 points, then the Brobots get a Full Win again.

Now let's make the game unbalanced: make the TIE swarm vastly better. The TIE swarm annihilates the Brobots: he pushes one down to its final hitpoint and destroys the other. The turn before he deals that killing shot, time is called. He's lost three Obsidian Squadron TIE fighters of his eight, for a total of 39 points. His opponent has effectively lost 93-ish points. (whatever 7/8ths of 100 is.)

Modified Win for TIE swarm, because that 1HP Aggressor counts as undamaged.

What if all four Obsidians go down, and you have four Academies (48 points) hounding the 1HP Aggressor?

The TIE swarm actually loses.

Because you only score when you kill the ship, the TIE swarm has to kill half the enemy list to win, whereas the Aggressors only need to kill one TIE and survive. If an Aggressor goes down, they only need to kill half of the TIEs to win. If 51 points of the TIE swarm die, they have to wipe out the enemy before the clock runs out or they lose.

With aggressive squads, this isn't an issue: the game'll finish before time. When squads have a decent number of ships it's also not much of an issue: while the bias for the higher costed ships is still there it's pretty minor: a 1HP FCS B-wing full wins against a full health Academy pilot and a 1HP StarViper modified wins against two full health Academy Pilots, but these are fairly close situations.

The Fat Falcon is a 60pt ship, but you don't score those 60 points until you kill the whole thing. To put some perspective on it, this is like having a pack of five Academy Pilots (60pt) and scoring nothing until you kill every last one. Until that last TIE goes down, they count as completely unharmed.

In Fat Falcon + 3 Z-95s versus 8 TIE fighters, things get silly once we get to 60pts surviving, as you're likely to do in a 75 minute game. The TIEs have taken out the Falcon's escort and lost three TIEs in the process: it's 5 TIEs versus a 60pt Fat Falcon. The Falcon needs to kill one TIE to win. The TIEs need to kill the 60pt Falcon to win: if every TIE survives they draw, they lose one single TIE and the Falcon gets a full win. To get a full win without killing the Falcon 72pts (just under three quarters of the list) of TIEs need to survive to the end: they can lose only 28 points of ships. Sound fair?

In a normal game this wouldn't be a problem: the TIEs have plenty of time to fight and kill that Falcon. However, the Fat Falcon is a tournament phenomenom: it tanks down and runs away while its escort kills a chunk of your list, then lets the clock do the work. It (with the aid of 40 points of escort) only needs to kill half your list and survive, even on one hit point to win. It kills 52 points and it gets a Full Win. That's with its escort dead and it on one hit point. If the escort kills its points worth of ships, leaving you with 60pt Falcon versus 60pts of your squad, then it needs to kill only one ship to win, even a throwaway Z-95. They have to kill half your squad to win, you have to kill all of theirs. A 60 point Falcon on a single point of health full wins against 48 points of ships on full health, and modified wins against 59. This strategy is known as the Point Fort.

As a result of this, Point Forts have a tendency to score Full Wins in tiebreakers that would be Modified Wins for other lists and Modified Wins where other lists would have lost. They don't win by being mechanically better (they're mechanically on par), they win by manipulating the tiebreaker. The player doesn't even need to be aware of this to do it: as long as they know to keep their Falcon alive the Point Fort can do its work without them understanding the theory of it at all.

What the change does is split large ships into two halves in terms of point scoring: two large ships drop in points like four small ships. This makes the points you score more representative of the damage you've dealt. This doesn't affect the aggressive power of large ships in any way: if you're going for destroying the opponent no difference. If you're going for run away and win on the clock however, you'll actually have to keep your Falcon barely damaged to score 60 points: if they kill half that Falcon, they'll score 30 points.

If we go back to our situations with the Brobots and the TIE swarm, the situations change. The four TIE swarm hounding the 1HP Aggressor no longer loses: it scores a Full Win as it should.

This isn't a nerf to any ship, it's a nerf to Defensive Play in tournaments because it makes the score much closer to the actual state of the board. Point Forts work nowhere near as well. You no longer score a Full Win while at a huge disadvantage. Large ships need to focus on killing enemy ships, not on surviving. They can no longer score total wins off of killing a couple of TIEs and surviving.

Small ships aren't subject to this rule, but very few of them can hit that tiebreaker distorting 50-60 points. Corran and Rexler Brath get closest. Even those that can hit 50 (Corran Horn maybe aside) lack that defensive strength that made the Point Forts capable of living to the end: rather than point forts, they're highly appealing targets.

So do B-wings benefit? Yes in the sense that the Fat Falcon can't kill two of them, survive on 1HP and score a Full Win. But B-wings aren't expensive enough to Point Fort: Point Forting requires a combination of high health, high damage mitigation protecting that health (such as the three damage cancelling Fat Falcon) and incredibly high point cost while maintaining enough combat efficiency to fight on equal terms with another list. The B-wing can't do that. Make a 66 point Ten Numb and it won't be fighting on par with other lists because frankly a 66 point Ten Numb sucks. The B-wing has excellent durability for 20-30 points. 50pt B-wings do not have good durability for their cost.

All non-two ship lists benefit from the end of the Age of the Point Fort that's existed since Worlds 2014. But it's not a nerf to anything but the Point Fort strategy: it just makes the tiebreaker score better represent the state of the board.

You can no longer distort the tiebreaker with a >50 point ship. That's pretty much all there is to this change.

What Blue Five said. (won't quote cuz it's too long )

If you want to pick a single winner, you might be able to argue for dual defenders. Miranda and Corran are probably the biggest winner though. I may take another look at my Rocky and Bullwinkle Corranda list.

if Miranda or corrans are the so called winners, then the real winners are conner nets

Firesprays feel like the biggest losers.

If time is called at this situation:

33 pt Bounty Hunter at 5 hp

Vs

22 pt Blue Squadron Pilot at 1 hp

The Bounty Hunter now loses by 6 pts.

That sucks!!

It also kind of sucks that a Fat Han at 6 HP vs 2, 1 HP B Wings now loses!

Oh well! Just gotta make sure to never let the game end at time!

If Han has two B-wings both down to 1 hull without killing one of them, Han done screwed up.

If Han has two B-wings both down to 1 hull without killing one of them, Han done screwed up.

But it IS possible.

Now imagine, 1 HP, 35pt Guri vs 6 HP, 63 Fat Han. Guri wins this match when time is called by 4 pts. That's kind of silly!! 46 pt Corran Horn can now get a 63pt Fat Han down to 6 hp and just turtle and regen, and get a full Victory. Amazing AND sad.

For every thing a new rule fixes, something else seems to take its place.

I am really beginning to think this change hurts Fat Ships quite a bit.

I guess they'll just have to start running when at above half hp instead of at 1 hp.

Corran has more hard counters like proton bombs or Adv Homers. More starvipers? Yes, please!

I know it seems unfair to only hit large bases but (I keep saying this) Large. Base. Boost. It is just too easy for large base boosters to play keep-away until time.

Curating a game like this is sorta like lopping off the tallest weeds in the garden. Chop the tallest down and you find a new tallest weed. In a game with this number of options, perfect balance will not happen.

Question to ask

1. Will the new rules increase or decrease list diversity?

2. Are the new rules better or worse at "representing" how well the two players performed in a given match.

Everyone is going on about the B Wing getting a boost from this.

I think that perhaps the Integrated Astro gave the X Wing just as much of a boost here. Points on points, it's on par with the B Wing for jousting (I think!) but has a dial with a different focus. No barrel roll however, but much better able to get into the donut hole of a TLT ship...

Question to ask

1. Will the new rules increase or decrease list diversity?

2. Are the new rules better or worse at "representing" how well the two players performed in a given match.

Those are the questions. I have my concerns. I'm sure FFG play tested these changes, but this "fix" doesn't really fix anything. It has just created a new problem. If anything, I fear the meta will get smaller. Large ships will decrease in number and cheap swarms will become the popular norm again. The poor YV-666 didn't even get a moment in the sun before being benched due to this new scoring rule.

This has nothing to do with "point fortressing", so no more long explanations are needed. It has to do with math and time. The new scoring system seems to be compounding this problem:

http://teamcovenant.com/theorist/2015/02/19/smart-money-the-60-minute-round/

In hopes of fixing this problem, we've switched to 70 minute games. Tough to say if this has "fixed" the issue, as BBBBZ still does very well inside of 70 minutes and I'm starting to see the players in my area move away from such lists. (Because they find them boring.) Now, I'm lucky. I play and TO with a group that is more interested in having fun with new lists than mathing a win. I'm just not looking forward to the Store Championship and the flood of "visitors" it draws.

I'm hoping I'll be wrong, and I'll find out soon.

The poor YV-666 didn't even get a moment in the sun before being benched due to this new scoring rule.

How is it benched? Did large ships really need to distort the tiebreaker to win?

No ship is any less powerful, they're just scored more appropriately at time.

The only situation where this can affect a game that completes is the sole survivor being a Lambda priced under 24 points.

The real winner in all this is 3 ship small builds which now have a chance to win at time versus a two ship build, in the past that was all but impossible and the small had to take out the large ship to win. Roughly 33,33,33 increments versus 25,25,25,25, or 30,30,20,20ish, 30,30,13,13,13 maybe.

4 B's are no better off in this system than they were before. Four dead B-wings still loses, as does four Y-wing TLTs. The only benefit they get is that they may generate a little extra MoV over the course of a tournament when winning and losing (if they play a lot of large ships). That's it.

If Han has two B-wings both down to 1 hull without killing one of them, Han done screwed up.

I knew someone would say that!! Haha.

But it IS possible.

Now imagine, 1 HP, 35pt Guri vs 6 HP, 63 Fat Han. Guri wins this match when time is called by 4 pts. That's kind of silly!! 46 pt Corran Horn can now get a 63pt Fat Han down to 6 hp and just turtle and regen, and get a full Victory. Amazing AND sad.

For every thing a new rule fixes, something else seems to take its place.

I am really beginning to think this change hurts Fat Ships quite a bit.

I guess they'll just have to start running when at above half hp instead of at 1 hp.

Or make sure they kill stuff so this change doesn't affect them as much. If this stops the big ship merry go round as I think it will then yeah!

I think A-wings are a big winner here, they always had trouble killing big ships after shooting off their proton rockets. Now they can get the big ships to 1/2 health and then flee the rest of the game.

While I think B's get some help from this, I think TLT Y wings are the real winner in all this....

Welcome to the forums - good post - great username

The poor YV-666 didn't even get a moment in the sun before being benched due to this new scoring rule.

How is it benched? Did large ships really need to distort the tiebreaker to win?

No ship is any less powerful, they're just scored more appropriately at time.

The only situation where this can affect a game that completes is the sole survivor being a Lambda priced under 24 points.

I made 2nd place (5-1) at a tourney with Triple Slavers. Had K4 and Damps.