Well... You can always give one of them decoy.

Well... You can always give one of them decoy.

With an additional cost of 2points, bringing you to now whopping 74 (!!) pts w/o any other upgrades on them, if you field them together. And they have to stick together in range band 1-2.

If you use either of them together with other pilots, still "uneccessary" 2pts, and lost the EPT slot.

Much of the problem is that the highest PS pilots often also have the best PS abilities. So there is often no incentive to go mid PS. The are exceptions, but look at Soontir and Corran and RAC and Dash.

heck, if Vessery and Rexler swapped pilot skills, BOTH of them would probably see more play.

I think the same thing about Rhymer and Jonus. Swap their PS and Jonus with Squad Leader becomes an awesome sidekick for Rhymer. Make Jonus's ability affect himself and he might almost be worth Rhymer's cost.

So, besides ensuring those pilots get EPTs, what would aid Mid range pilots?

Playing bigger games. A lot of their abilities benefit friendly ships, so the more friendly ships you have, the more you get out of the ability. High PS abilities are on average more 'individualist'.

Maybe we should also accept that a lot of this game was designed not for the organized, competitive, market.

A lot of pilots are highly thematic.

Well... You can always give one of them decoy.

With an additional cost of 2points, bringing you to now whopping 74 (!!) pts w/o any other upgrades on them, if you field them together. And they have to stick together in range band 1-2.

If you use either of them together with other pilots, still "uneccessary" 2pts, and lost the EPT slot.

I wasn't being serious. The best decoy use I can think of is Vader/echo and that doesn't even get played.

Maybe we should also accept that a lot of this game was designed not for the organized, competitive, market.

A lot of pilots are highly thematic.

Or we can expect to get thematic and relevant pieces for our miniatures game. There is no reason we can't have both.

Well... You can always give one of them decoy.

With an additional cost of 2points, bringing you to now whopping 74 (!!) pts w/o any other upgrades on them, if you field them together. And they have to stick together in range band 1-2.

If you use either of them together with other pilots, still "uneccessary" 2pts, and lost the EPT slot.

I wasn't being serious. The best decoy use I can think of is Vader/echo and that doesn't even get played.

Ah ok, you should have added a smily . Never tested decoy myself.

29/32 of the Top Worlds Builds. Thanks MJ!

Now updated with all 32!

Those three squads really messed up the top and bottom ends.

If you're already bidding up to 4 to beat These generics (or 5-7 to beat those that already beat PS 2) then why not go all in on PS 8+?

Because against PS 2 swarms, you have to find the right balance between PS bid and number of your own ships. You can field more ships with PS4 than PS > 8.

The problem with PS war is that it always gets into the "you know what? Buy yourself a boost" part

and boost (especially boost+barrelroll) is literally killing the fun of the "predict thy enemy move" game idea.

I don't think Boost/BR ruins the "predict..." Part of the game anymore than dual dice modification ruins the combat phase of the game. Very few ships have access to both and even fewer have a means to do both often. Those that do are not exactly tearing up the meta (Soontir and who? Else? Vader sometimes and for 4pts more).

I do think PS makes this worse but boost and BR are just as powerful on PS1-3 as blockers (see top 16 uses). I hope we continue to see more maneuverability and more turret restrictions not less.

The whole point of an Interceptor is to be agile and hard to hit. The balancing factor to this is that it's squishy. Three hull melts quick, which is why I don't play Soontir.

It can't melt if you always have tons of tokens, and at most times the enemy has a chance to shoot only after making a long koigran.

Or he did a great job and blocked the pesky arcdodger.

Things get uber-tough when an arcdodger is a SUPER FAT PS8+ TURRET

It can't melt if you always have tons of tokens, and at most times the enemy has a chance to shoot only after making a long koigran.

Or he did a great job and blocked the pesky arcdodger.

Things get uber-tough when an arcdodger is a SUPER FAT PS8+ TURRET

I think that there is the problem: it's high PS, arc dodging turrets, most often with 8+ HP that are an issue.

The interceptors are a tough nut to crack and should be for roughly a third of your squad cost and only 3 HP. You already mentioned blocking; that is probably the most valid strategy against high PS dodgers and people STILL don't learn it and do it. Tons of tokens do nothing against massed fire or if you roll blanks (and are not at range 3 or out of arc).

Soontir didn't win worlds... didn't even make it to the last table... he's the epitome of what you're describing. Is it frustrating? Maybe. But Soontir, and every other interceptor out there, always die if you mass fire on them or block them. Pretty much the same thing you have to do to "Ace Turrets" except at least Soontir only has 3 hp.

It can't melt if you always have tons of tokens, and at most times the enemy has a chance to shoot only after making a long koigran.

Or he did a great job and blocked the pesky arcdodger.

Things get uber-tough when an arcdodger is a SUPER FAT PS8+ TURRET

I think that there is the problem: it's high PS, arc dodging turrets, most often with 8+ HP that are an issue.

The interceptors are a tough nut to crack and should be for roughly a third of your squad cost and only 3 HP. You already mentioned blocking; that is probably the most valid strategy against high PS dodgers and people STILL don't learn it and do it. Tons of tokens do nothing against massed fire or if you roll blanks (and are not at range 3 or out of arc).

Soontir didn't win worlds... didn't even make it to the last table... he's the epitome of what you're describing. Is it frustrating? Maybe. But Soontir, and every other interceptor out there, always die if you mass fire on them or block them. Pretty much the same thing you have to do to "Ace Turrets" except at least Soontir only has 3 hp.

Soontir faced the Stress-droid Y-wing.

Soontir faced the Tactician-TLTs

so the downfall of this one is reliance on his epic greens

you get stressed-you get down.

If enemy has no means to stress you, he's only hoping on your green dice catching terminal cancer. Multiple times.

And that might not happen at all.

While Soontir chews and chews up the enemy.

he MUST have counter-matchups. and so now he does.