The Imperial at worlds lost the game during set up.

If only YOU had been there! YOU would be World Champion!

Well, he's not wrong. It was a terrible deployment. If recognizing that qualifies a man for World Champion, then apparently my local community would have swept Worlds if any of us had gotten tickets, cause every single person who was watching saw it right away.

Is there a video of the world championship?

Dug it out of the A-Wing MVP thread.

havn't checked link for veracity yet.

http://www.twitch.tv/ffglive/v/24306606

Re: our top table Gencon special man: as someone who has been in national competitions of various kinds, fatigue, pressure, and stress have something to do with it

As an example, for Jeopardy, if you sat pretty much anyone who qualified to attend the show down and had them answer from behind a TV? They'd sweep the thing. Put them up there with a buzzer and things change!

Anyways, re: the AFmkII- the thing is so ugly I have been on a mission to destroy them since wave I with both the imps and rebs. I've found the best way to do that is to play as them and think about what my worst nightmares are.

1. Blocking/Boxing. This I think just wreaks havoc on any broadsider. With Vader and Ordnance Experts now available, demolisher with Exp Launchers I think will be the new "it ship" as you can easily fish for hit-crits and you might as well reroll your reds for acc's. This version of Demo also makes an excellent pursuit ship to launch missiles into the tailpipe and it also makes a double-arc nearly an instant kill for anything short of an ISD/mc80.

For rebs, ye olde neb-b spamming engineering commands makes a fine and dandy road block, though you'll need some fighters or something to actually do any damage.

2. Ad nauseum bombers. For imps, this is straightforward as the tie bomber is (imo) the best bomber point for point if only because of speed 4 (not to mention Rhymer effects!). An efficient placement of said group will only require 1 squadron command every other turn to pound on those frigs no matter what that ugly frog does. The best part? This synergizes really well with boxing!

3. Any two wave 2 super-activations. I'm talking mc80 leading shots, mc30's, or ISD vader shots. The firepower level is such that squishing a froggy in one turn is well within reach now. The trick will be bringing that to bear, but then isn't it always?

4. Ackbar must die. The AFmkII alone is outclassed in raw output relative to the other ships in its point bracket: if you can kill him, then toss all your own ships into the melee all Horatio Nelson style, you'll probably come out on top.

The Imperial at worlds lost the game during set up.

If only YOU had been there! YOU would be World Champion!

Maybe, hard to say.

But he was bound to have an unfavorable setup seeing as the Rebel player had squads to delay the placement of his fleet ships. I'm not sure how the Imps could of setup more favorably.

By driving a SD through it's heart.

Any way we could get this read by Samuel Jackson with some colorful language thrown in?

Now all I have in my head is:

"I am sick of these mother f***ing Assault Frigates in this mother f***ing game!"

That's exactly what every Imperial player has stuck in his head.

By driving a SD through it's heart.

Any way we could get this read by Samuel Jackson with some colorful language thrown in?

Now all I have in my head is:

"I am sick of these mother f***ing Assault Frigates in this mother f***ing game!"

That's exactly what every Imperial player has stuck in his head.

Or,

"I am sick of these mother f***ing Assault Frigates clogging up my mother f***ing windshield wipers!"

Can someone do a vassal screenshot of this magical conga line set up where getting the turn is easy? I've not really heard that term before either: "turn".

Also. fkin bombers. I just wanna see stuff explode after being hit with giant gouts of fire. concentrated gouts of fire. is that such a crime

I think you know it BB, you just maybe don't consider the turn as a decisive moment; rather the sum of all moves.

An over simplification would be, you're on one side of the table, assault frigates the other. Both sides drive straight at each other. The assault frigates turn to either side of the table, in a line, and move away from the bulk of your force. Some fraction of your force now cannot fire at the assault frigates. All assault frigates focus fire on the remainder.

I think you know it BB, you just maybe don't consider the turn as a decisive moment; rather the sum of all moves.

An over simplification would be, you're on one side of the table, assault frigates the other. Both sides drive straight at each other. The assault frigates turn to either side of the table, in a line, and move away from the bulk of your force. Some fraction of your force now cannot fire at the assault frigates. All assault frigates focus fire on the remainder.

In that scenario you just disengage and take the 5-5. Speed up to two, go the opposite direction, and have a beer with him after

Seriously what makes it work is people have to try to turn with them, like dogfighting. It's just not gonna happen for imperials, and if you're opponent puts you in a lose or draw situation take the draw and hopefully the next match you get a better objective to play towards

I am primarily a Rebel player. That being said, I've been doing a lot of playing against myself and trying to get an Imperial fleet I think can stand up to my preferred AF list.

Boy, there isn't much I've liked Wave 1. Maybe some ISD lists can change that. But right now, I don't feel there is enough output to overcome the brick like maneuvers of the VSD. Best I can manage it seems is to throw the Glads out there and hope they kill before getting smoked. And you have to play the objective as an Imperial.

I say that because most of my games I'll random draw an objective to play. It's good to learn.

Excellent thread, glad to see we are still raising good discussions despite the delay now getting very demoralising....

I've played predominantly VSDs (as opposed to multiple gladiators) through wave 1, and been on the receiving end of assault frigates getting ahead of the curve on me. Been in the exact situation where the turn has basically left my VSDs in line astern and getting picked off one by one.

Agree wave 2 has the potential to make this situation even more so with Ackbar etc.

Looking forward, I think deployment will be really important, as will the ISDs speed 3. I think a smaller number of fast ships operating dispersed will do better than 3 or 4 ships in close formation where gunnery team lines will be able to set up and contain them easily. Maybe put an ISD with gunnery teams at either end of the table and run navigate commands to force the gunline to either break apart or get engaged from multiple angles.

This is what I care about wave 2.

..https://youtu.be/FbweXPVKPxg?t=15

I think you know it BB, you just maybe don't consider the turn as a decisive moment; rather the sum of all moves.

An over simplification would be, you're on one side of the table, assault frigates the other. Both sides drive straight at each other. The assault frigates turn to either side of the table, in a line, and move away from the bulk of your force. Some fraction of your force now cannot fire at the assault frigates. All assault frigates focus fire on the remainder.

In that scenario you just disengage and take the 5-5. Speed up to two, go the opposite direction, and have a beer with him after

Seriously what makes it work is people have to try to turn with them, like dogfighting. It's just not gonna happen for imperials, and if you're opponent puts you in a lose or draw situation take the draw and hopefully the next match you get a better objective to play towards

I wonder how much the new array of ships will help the Empire counter this. In the past, when the core of the battle line consisted of speed 2 Vics (if you were pushing them) and speed 3 Glads, the indecision of not knowing which way the Rebels were going to turn was pretty significant. Fail to predict correctly, and you had a major ship severely out of position. Even with engine techs, a non-Demolisher glad would have a tough time making up enough ground to fire before his target moved on, and Demolisher was pretty much reduced to a one-shot attack (instead of the preferred double- or triple-shot), unless you had an activation advantage and went first. I still think activation advantage will be important for dealing with this type of list, and squadrons (whether Rogue or Rhymer-enhanced or using Boosted Comms) are a definite improvement over ships (given their ability to turn on a dime and change direction), but the imperial ships are also more forgiving. An ISD at speed 2-3 with a nav command can perform a 135 degree turn over two turns (I think I have that math right). Run two navs on turns 1-2, for example, and couple that with a larger base and front arc, and that is significantly harder to flank than a Vic. If the rebels turn the other way, the ISD will still be playing catch-up, but at speed 3, an ISD on the edge at least stands a chance of catching the end of the rebel gun line, and if the imperial player can bring 2 or more tractor beams to bear (again, lots of contingencies here), the ISD will either have a decided speed advantage, or the rebel player will be locked into spamming a particular command for the rest of the game.

Demolisher is still the best pursuit ship by far, but I'll be curious to see if a speed 4 raider can at least be serviceable. Not being able to move-and-shoot will still hurt them when approaching from the rear, but being first player with an activation advantage could be helpful here (and being first player may not even be strictly necessary, if the spacing between the rebel gunline is such that the lead ship must activate first to escape collisions). Run a raider with expanded hanger bays and a couple of TIE bombers (or Boosted Comms + Tarkin if you're worried about activation range, or Expanded hangers + Tarkin if you want three bombers per turn), and you can still bring 2-3 black dice to bear on the rear ship each round, even as the Raider works on chipping down the distance between it and the last AFII (Rhymer + Dengar leaves room for up to 10 other Bombers [or five Firesprays, if that's more of your thing], so there are lots of options here). Plus the Raider wants to be in that rear arc, not the side arcs, so that's a benefit.

Ryth! You've really put a lot into this!

Reading your responses I feel like there will definitely be some new options for the Imperials. The rebels, of course can mirror match a swirling toilet fight, but I'll never bring a list that has to count on the turn again after so long with that in wave 1. Beget to have an answer - and you all seem to have many - for it than just join the crowd.

The ISD can turn into you easily, but the trick for the rebels may be to force the ISD to choose, to turn 1 way and get the front arc planted on a couple of AFII, only to leave your flank exposed to two more AFIIs........ Of course the imps can counter this with another ISD. I think a 2 ISD/squadron list will be very strong.

The ISD can turn into you easily, but the trick for the rebels may be to force the ISD to choose, to turn 1 way and get the front arc planted on a couple of AFII, only to leave your flank exposed to two more AFIIs........ Of course the imps can counter this with another ISD. I think a 2 ISD/squadron list will be very strong.

The thing I'd worry about would be putting two ISDs in the "kill zone" (that middle-of-the-board space where the opponent can hit multiple targets with multiple side arc barrages). Four AFIIs with overlapping side arcs can two-for-one each ISD, which is a distinct advantage for the Rebels at long range (5+ reds [3 base + Ackbar] x2 vs. 4+ [4 base, maybe +1 for CF, another +1 if you have Slaved Turrets?]). The ISD is tankier than an AFII (especially the II variant, which can take defensive retrofits), but any ship that's taking dice at a 2:1 ratio is going to be hurting, even if those dice are fickle reds. If the AFIIs have Gunnery Teams, or if 3-4 of them can focus on the same ISD, the problem is magnified.

That said, there are definitely things that could be done to mitigate the risk here.

• Speed and Firepower: If the two ISDs have Gunnery Teams and tractor beams, they'll be at a decided advantage if they can both close on a single AFII at long range. A four AFII list can't do anything to slow them down (no room for a large base ship in that list), and double-tractoring will consistently slow the target down to 1 speed, unless it keeps spamming tokens and/or plotting nav commands (might be worth trying to fit a CR-90B with Raymus/Tantive for token spam into these AFII-heavy lists). Gunnery Teams are even more devastating on ISDs as they are on AFIIs, because of the increase in base dice.
• Titles: Devastator might be a nice title to include here if you anticipate being shot a lot in the butt; bringing 1-4 extra blue dice to bear against a slowed AFII or two really hastens its demise (no defense tokens are being used... like, at all...). It might be difficult to get that front arc back into fighting position in the late game, but if you can eliminate a couple AFIIs in turns 3-4, additional kills might be gratuitous. Avenger seems like a no-brainer if you're running with Devastator, though that sort of locks you into a certain activation order if you want to use the title to maximum effect.
• Squadrons: Still extremely useful--there's just rooms for lots of them (easily 100 points, unless you realllllllly deck out those ISDs... which you might want to do...). The Boosted Comms+Expanded Hangers layout on the ISD I offers a couple of options: push the squadrons forward during your initial volley, as the ISDs tractor beam, gunnery team, and CF a poor AFII into oblivion (frankly this might be overkilling, although anything worth killing is worth overkilling...), or deploy them aft as you turn, and alpha-strike the poor AFII who is trying to rear-arc you (basically allowing you to fight on two fronts). I feel adding Rhymer will be important to make sure that you don't out-range the bomber swarm, but still has sufficient range to deal with pursuers, though he might not be strictly necessary.
• Attrition: Even for two ISDs with Gunnery Teams, taking on two Ackbar-enhanced AFIIs with Gunnery Teams is no picnic. There's still a ton of dice being thrown around. Fortunately, a pair of ISDs nearly doubles the health totals of those AFIIs (22 vs. 12), with equivalent shields. Motti tips the balance significantly in favor of the Imperials (28 vs. 12, still equal shields). Since Screed doesn't do much for ISDs unless it's an ISD I at close range, Tarkin is a lot to pay for just two tokens per round, and you can replicate Vader's effect with Motti + Leading Shots for four less points, Motti seems like a strong play for this type of list.

Ryth! You've really put a lot into this!

Reading your responses I feel like there will definitely be some new options for the Imperials. The rebels, of course can mirror match a swirling toilet fight, but I'll never bring a list that has to count on the turn again after so long with that in wave 1. Beget to have an answer - and you all seem to have many - for it than just join the crowd.

Thanks. It's been keeping me up late at night (not literally... well, not usually...). I may or may not have a multi-part strategy series in the works on this topic.

Tractor beams. Always tractor beams.

After playing wwpdsteven yesterday, I'm honestly just worried about rebels in general. They seem to have gotten multiple extremely powerful list archetypes like ackbars circus of circles, but also a corvette swarm with riekken is terrifying as imperials. Without consistent long range damage there's really nothing you can do to prevent double rams. And any ship that gets to 3 hull gets a free double ram next turn, plus whatever it deals from shooting. I'm honestly worried imperials might get even weaker compared to rebels post wave 2. High damage doesn't stop riekken, and is only equal to ackbars while he maintains more versatility in ship selection. And the trouble with firesprays is they're 20$ for one, so you'll have to blow 60$ to have an appreciable bomber force of rogue ships. Still have to try tarkin against Stevens list, as he might prove more useful for double downing engineering tokens, but even then I don't think you can outlast nearly 20+ dealt damage and an mc80 while playing the objective

Without consistent long range damage there's really nothing you can do to prevent double rams. And any ship that gets to 3 hull gets a free double ram next turn, plus whatever it deals from shooting. I'm honestly worried imperials might get even weaker compared to rebels post wave 2.

One counter to this list is TIE bombers. Throw in Rhymer and/or boosted comms for extra insurance, but they're not strictly required. Bombers have the speed to keep up with corvettes, and focus firing them should take them down quickly. You'll have to play the squadrons as minefields and place some of them where you expect the corvettes to go next turn.

Without consistent long range damage there's really nothing you can do to prevent double rams. And any ship that gets to 3 hull gets a free double ram next turn, plus whatever it deals from shooting. I'm honestly worried imperials might get even weaker compared to rebels post wave 2.

One counter to this list is TIE bombers. Throw in Rhymer and/or boosted comms for extra insurance, but they're not strictly required. Bombers have the speed to keep up with corvettes, and focus firing them should take them down quickly. You'll have to play the squadrons as minefields and place some of them where you expect the corvettes to go next turn.

The issue is that they just ram, they arnt going to go anywhere persay. Bombers would work potentially, but its still shields and hull you have to chew through, and there's no yavaris to assist that

What bombers offer is the extended range firepower you were mentioning. With standard bombers, you're already attacking beyond long range by quite a bit. This does leave them hanging the next turn, but that's where Rhymer and Boosted Comms come in. You should be able to reach out and touch someone a full turn, maybe two, before they impact you. 6 damage (after evades/redirects) is certainly do-able for a decent Rhymerball, in one turn. Eliminating even one or two corvettes in a 6 corvette list is a considerable reduction in the damage potential.

If you take Vader and LS on an ISD-II, the probability of not one-shotting a corvette gets satisfactorily low

Add a gunnery team in there and the Tarkin doctrine comes right back into the limelight!

What bombers offer is the extended range firepower you were mentioning. With standard bombers, you're already attacking beyond long range by quite a bit. This does leave them hanging the next turn, but that's where Rhymer and Boosted Comms come in. You should be able to reach out and touch someone a full turn, maybe two, before they impact you. 6 damage (after evades/redirects) is certainly do-able for a decent Rhymerball, in one turn. Eliminating even one or two corvettes in a 6 corvette list is a considerable reduction in the damage potential.

It's actually 5 corvettes and an mc80 for durability. The issue comes much more into the interplay of the objectives and the speed of the corvettes. Gunnery teams don't benefit you too awful much when he's just gonna pop 2-3 damage in shooting, then ram for 2 more. Since you don't remove the ships till the end of the turn, he still clogs lanes and likely forces a bump on your activations as well, dealing an extra damage. The issues much more of how do you have enough activations to deny him better activation order, while still maintaining firepower. Bombers can work, but at the cost of ships and therefore hull points you desperately need to withstand ramming. I'm not super confident in single shot black die that can be redirected if its a crit, or eaten if not, is the best answer. Going second means he gets to pick either contested outpost or the red objective, cause most wanted, precision shots, advanced gunnery, and opening salvo all benefit him more in the long run, since you can assume I'll one shot regardless. So long as each corvette does 3-4 damage in rams and another 1-2 in shooting they're expendable with 160 points sitting in an mc80