It seems to me that the current meta is either Rebel regen lists or Reble/Scum TLT lists. Do the Imperials have a place in this meta? How can they deal with it? It would seem they have to bring a lot of heavy firepower to either take down a Y-wing with a TLT, or enough to 1 round Poe or Corran before they can regen shields.
Do the Imperials have a place in the current meta?
Absolutely. Palp/Vader/Fel is as good as ever, as are black crack swarms, double interceptors, and obsidian swarms. People diss on RAC+Whisper but if flown properly it can table anything in the meta.
There is also the chef's surprise right here:
We don't have stress-hogs
We don't have proper fat turrets (Kamikaze Decis don't count)
We don't have regen
Outside of Crackshot spam, our Swarms are a bit lacking, but will be revitalized shortly
We do have a lot of tricks (Palpmobile, etc), but they are not as consistent as say, Rebel top tier builds, at the moment.
Scum is worse off though.
We don't have stress-hogs
You do have Rebel Captive, however, which is nice. And Mara Jade. and Ysanne Isard - while not C3P0 - adds a degree of fatness.
We do have a lot of tricks (Palpmobile, etc), but they are not as consistent as say, Rebel top tier builds, at the moment.
Like Vader, and some of the very best action economy arc dodgers in the game.
Scum is worse off though.
Pffft. If you say so.
Well I was playing a Shuttle last night with Mara and Rebel Captive on it, but my opponent had Sum Ys with Unhinged Astromech, so the stress really wasnt too much of a problem.
Played against a list recently where the guy was running 4 Tie Advanced with accuracy correctors and Dark Curse and he kicked my butt. I think I only saw him lose 1 in 5 games with that list.
I also recently ran a Doom shuttle with 2 loaded Royal guard interceptors and Dark Curse. Went 2 of 3 and the 2 lists I beat had TLT Miranda Kwing.
I think game balance is pretty good at the moment, if you account for a slight rebel bias - namely that rebels have been and will remain the favoured faction. I long ago made my peace with this, and enjoy the asymmetry this provides. Yes, there are more top table rebel lists than in other factions, and yes they get very powerful abilities and combos that the others don't. Which faction is the most fun to play though? It's subjective, but rebels come bottom of that list for me. So many fun ships in the imperial and scum lists!
As long as every faction is viable, and has the tools to build competetive lists, I'm a happy ducky. The game keeps getting better and better, and balance flicks around. I think rebels will remain marginally top dog throughout different iterations, though. It feels like a design decision, and that's cool with me: better to have a first place faction and balance around it, in my opinion.
Finally, specifically, Imperials have so many great aces, and are about to get a brand new type: the 25-30 point ace, along the line of Jake... The Inquisitor and Omega Leader both look like beauties to me. Not to mention the love that tie swarms are getting. And the spankingly great x1. And emperor trollpatine himself. It's a good time to be an imperial player, fear not!
The question must come from rebel scum.........
I still think 4 shuttles with ion turtled in the back is the best list hands down. I fail to see how Poe stops ion when a shuttle can get behind and stay behind a ship chasing it off the board.
Edited by CubanboyWhat imps need is a small based suit that can take a turret mod, being fast and mobile means nothing when the other two factions have so many turrets.
That or give us a universal AT for tie series craft.
We don't have stress-hogs
We don't have proper fat turrets (Kamikaze Decis don't count)
We don't have regen
Sad Fett
is Sad
because S&V space pirates got neither.
flithy rebels getting all the good toys!
I think game balance is pretty good at the moment, if you account for a slight rebel bias - namely that rebels have been and will remain the favoured faction. I long ago made my peace with this, and enjoy the asymmetry this provides. Yes, there are more top table rebel lists than in other factions, and yes they get very powerful abilities and combos that the others don't. Which faction is the most fun to play though? It's subjective, but rebels come bottom of that list for me. So many fun ships in the imperial and scum lists!
As long as every faction is viable, and has the tools to build competetive lists, I'm a happy ducky. The game keeps getting better and better, and balance flicks around. I think rebels will remain marginally top dog throughout different iterations, though. It feels like a design decision, and that's cool with me: better to have a first place faction and balance around it, in my opinion.
Finally, specifically, Imperials have so many great aces, and are about to get a brand new type: the 25-30 point ace, along the line of Jake... The Inquisitor and Omega Leader both look like beauties to me. Not to mention the love that tie swarms are getting. And the spankingly great x1. And emperor trollpatine himself. It's a good time to be an imperial player, fear not!
While I agree with most of your post this is a loaded statement. The only thing I'd agree is overblown is the Ghost and its contents, but those at the very least are priced accordingly in terms of points.
What the Empire needs is more force multipliers like Sheev or Callus. Anyone who thinks the game is purposely made to let the Wookie win should remember the Phantom menace and the happy times of Decimators and Ceptors. GUNBOAT! This is just one wave, that had to be Rebel-oriented because of license holders. It will even out once the Empire gets TLT platforms, a way to double-stress, and the GUNBOAT.
Yes. They have a place in my gunsights! 
I think game balance is pretty good at the moment, if you account for a slight rebel bias - namely that rebels have been and will remain the favoured faction. I long ago made my peace with this, and enjoy the asymmetry this provides. Yes, there are more top table rebel lists than in other factions, and yes they get very powerful abilities and combos that the others don't. Which faction is the most fun to play though? It's subjective, but rebels come bottom of that list for me. So many fun ships in the imperial and scum lists!
As long as every faction is viable, and has the tools to build competetive lists, I'm a happy ducky. The game keeps getting better and better, and balance flicks around. I think rebels will remain marginally top dog throughout different iterations, though. It feels like a design decision, and that's cool with me: better to have a first place faction and balance around it, in my opinion.
Finally, specifically, Imperials have so many great aces, and are about to get a brand new type: the 25-30 point ace, along the line of Jake... The Inquisitor and Omega Leader both look like beauties to me. Not to mention the love that tie swarms are getting. And the spankingly great x1. And emperor trollpatine himself. It's a good time to be an imperial player, fear not!
Who knows about the new Ghost and its crew. Even if they turn out to be game breaking I just won't use them. Also if you're right about the Rebels being the 'favoured' faction at least you said the game is good and all factions can play well and is viable.
I don't know but I think I might agree with a lot of this. 
I think game balance is pretty good at the moment, if you account for a slight rebel bias - namely that rebels have been and will remain the favoured faction. I long ago made my peace with this, and enjoy the asymmetry this provides. Yes, there are more top table rebel lists than in other factions, and yes they get very powerful abilities and combos that the others don't. Which faction is the most fun to play though? It's subjective, but rebels come bottom of that list for me. So many fun ships in the imperial and scum lists!
As long as every faction is viable, and has the tools to build competetive lists, I'm a happy ducky. The game keeps getting better and better, and balance flicks around. I think rebels will remain marginally top dog throughout different iterations, though. It feels like a design decision, and that's cool with me: better to have a first place faction and balance around it, in my opinion.
Finally, specifically, Imperials have so many great aces, and are about to get a brand new type: the 25-30 point ace, along the line of Jake... The Inquisitor and Omega Leader both look like beauties to me. Not to mention the love that tie swarms are getting. And the spankingly great x1. And emperor trollpatine himself. It's a good time to be an imperial player, fear not!
While I agree with most of your post this is a loaded statement. The only thing I'd agree is overblown is the Ghost and its contents, but those at the very least are priced accordingly in terms of points.
What the Empire needs is more force multipliers like Sheev or Callus. Anyone who thinks the game is purposely made to let the Wookie win should remember the Phantom menace and the happy times of Decimators and Ceptors. GUNBOAT! This is just one wave, that had to be Rebel-oriented because of license holders. It will even out once the Empire gets TLT platforms, a way to double-stress, and the GUNBOAT.
Fair enough Hondo, I always respect your opinions, maybe you're right. It's certainly not a point I feel the need to defend with my life, just an observation based on a history of winning lists, ship release schedules and powerful faction-unique abilities.
I'll agree that Rebels ships in general are more forgiving of mistakes and the faction has a great toolset. As a general rule, it's a bit of an uphill climb fighting them right now.
But FFG has shown real tenacity in trying to keep the game fun and balanced, even applying patches where needed. So I have faith that this is just a temporary hiccup in the meta.
And even still the game is still fun to play as any faction!
problem with Imperials is you need to win on flying rather than dice throwing, which takes getting used to after the deluge of PWT nonsense we had to wade through for so long
what the empire seems to be getting as of most recently is a big shot in the arm to its generics
Black Squadron pilots have already enjoyed the immense benefit of crackshot, and now Gonzati has given us the awesome that is Wampa
After testing Omega Squadrons with Juke + Relay...yeah this is going to be a thing
People still decry bombers for some reason, but Extra Munitions give a Homing + Seismic set-up a lot of punch and a surprising amount of flexibility
and then, of course, there's the Tie/x1 AC. This thing is awesome and I have no idea why people don't play it more; not having to roll dice (or always getting to at least go "and....2 hits!") is about the best feeling in the game, chuncky and maneuverable to boot! Really do a number on TLTs. Only problem, especially relative to the fighters, is enemy green dice tech.
Regeneration and cooperation certainly feel like Rebel abilities thematically. What we could use are Imperial counterparts. Stress would be the anti-cooperation, but Rebels pretty much have that too. Short-term offense spikes would be the counter to regeneration. Imperials are currently the best at that with Crack swarms, and they may be able to add ordnance alpha strikes to their lists when the wrinkles get fixed, because TIE bombers are easily the best ordnance carriers in the game for the points.
I seem to be the only one still fighting the good fight on this one. FFG really needs to fix the defender! Otherwise imperial players can only brings Aces, swarms, or decimator/phantoms plus support ships. I would like the fix to make the choice between an Ace in a interceptor or a defender difficult to choose between when list building.
It seems to me that the current meta is either Rebel regen lists or Reble/Scum TLT lists. Do the Imperials have a place in this meta? How can they deal with it? It would seem they have to bring a lot of heavy firepower to either take down a Y-wing with a TLT, or enough to 1 round Poe or Corran before they can regen shields.
I think that Imperials probably have more competitive play options/builds than scum, despite their access to TLT and the fact that yesterday I made the case that imperial has fewer unique tools than either of the other factions. There are three types of Imperial lists that saw the top level of competition at Worlds: Swarms, Aces, and Turret+Ace. They were essentially just different ways to damage opposing lists rather than control or regen, but that's a bit better than scum which is either TLTs or IGs right now.
Edited by AlexWI seem to be the only one still fighting the good fight on this one. FFG really needs to fix the defender! Otherwise imperial players can only brings Aces, swarms, or decimator/phantoms plus support ships. I would like the fix to make the choice between an Ace in a interceptor or a defender difficult to choose between when list building.
Unless the defender has a fix that makes control more accessible and useful for the faction, it's really just going to be more of what they already have, though, different ways to simply straight up crush the opposition.
I think that the only reason you see rebels at the top tier is that with more shielded craft they have a built in fail safe. If I make a mistake it might survive better then if I make a mistake with imperial who have to rely on the ficle green dice. Plus I think the balance is very good at the minute so no need to worry.
Imperials still have quite a few viable builds but it looks like FFG wants to give the imps some really good swarm options. I know all factions have swarmy ships but none of them can touch the synergies coming for the imperial swarms and I expect to see hem in huge numbers in store champ season.
We're also getting more and more good ships to slot I to a swarm for extra punch. i am personally working on a five tie swarm with ATC zertik strom and so far it's been doing pretty well. I can't wait to work on some alternative builds one the f/o and Gozanti packs drop.
To be honest I'm happier as imperial player now than I have ever been
Imperials are fine. They still have the best aces in the game, the best crew, and the best swarms. All of that adds up to a great 3 ship list with Vader, Soontir and Palp that has been dominating and TIE swarms that have been good since the game released.
Regeneration and cooperation certainly feel like Rebel abilities thematically. What we could use are Imperial counterparts. Stress would be the anti-cooperation, but Rebels pretty much have that too. Short-term offense spikes would be the counter to regeneration. Imperials are currently the best at that with Crack swarms, and they may be able to add ordnance alpha strikes to their lists when the wrinkles get fixed, because TIE bombers are easily the best ordnance carriers in the game for the points.
I've wondered this for some time now. I've played both Rebellion and Empire ships and have often thought that since the Imperials didn't have shields or regen they are definitely less forgiving. This very facts makes them a bit harder to play. So counterparts sounds like a logical option except.....
I like the idea of the Empire and Rebellion have completely different themes and even saying that the line is blurring a bit. People were/are calling for native boost and barrel role for X-Wings. For a while barrel role was something that TIEs dominated in. Keep it distinct but keep it balanced. I'm still okay with the Rebels being favored just a little. Keeps that name sake (with IA and R2) as a good default option.
I'm still if the mind Imperials have great options and a good place in the meta, even before this coming Tie FO and Gozanti expansions, which will only make Imperials feel better!
I think the only problem people have with Imps is there is more tech existing to stop their heavy hitters. You get less of an "all around good" feel from Imps. Imps also have lots of tech that counters themselves, and really have to consider mirror matches in an equal light.
The good news is, Imps DO get more reposition tools and the like to still give them a chance to outplay when behind, and get more green dice that can suddenly get HOT and win a game with a series of natural 3 evade rolls. Rebels, on the other hand, almost HAVE to rely on their hull and shields and regen to win, and really feel useless when their red dice aren't working on those rounds that they choose to exchange hull.