Hey guys, just curious to have your opinion on whether you think Wave 2 favours a specific faction over another !

After playing with friends' ships, I'm going to get my first Wave 2 ship this week end, and I don't really know which faction to choose : my heart goes to the Rebels as a concept, but I have to say that the ISD is quite an eye catching iconic piece

That said, I'm a sucker for the underdogs and up the ante with ships and factions that don't really get much love. So, I'm curious to get your take on that !

Thanks

your going to hear a lot of rebels are op cause acknar stuff. Don't listen!

MoffZen it's tough I don't think there is one faction that out shines the other. I feel like the Rebels have more board control now with Ackbar, and any side arc firing ship and they come to the table with the MC30 sporting those sexy black dice. But Imperials have much more pressure they can apply. Having an ISD with 8 dice flying around is a serious threat, but having two of those killer triangles bearing down on a target it is to make quick work of it.

Lets not forget those Rogues and Villians. It's turned the squadron game "ON" Rogue keyword is so forgiving allowing us to move and shoot or shoot and move without the need for a Squadron command. Intel is...well there just aren't words for it.

What I like about Wave 2 is the amount of options and combinations we get. It makes the game fresh.

Nope. Lots of great options and strategies in this wave. Loving the hell out of it without having touched Ackbar once.

very well put

Wave to has made both factions very close in that they both now have more styles of play.

All I would say is wave two as given them both more play options, but:

Imps still have more options (not better, just more) on the focused point (fly directly at) and shoot style lists and still can't do a conga line at all.

Rebs have the conga line but have less focused "point and shoot"options ( defiant, salvation, MC30 Torpedo).

Intel. It makes me warm and fuzzy inside. Or, it's stomach flu. Either way, it makes dropping bombs pretty devastating.

After playing both sides. . . Hmmmm. . . No not really. The Gladiator is less of a threat now, the ISD 2 is the Imperial king where it belongs, and the VSD is still deadly, while the Raider is finding it's place, and lastly the Fireball is a thing people are learning to counter.

On the Rebel side of play, Ackbar is strong but not the end all be all, Rieekan is making a strong showing, the ships are strong in their regards with fun play styles.

Just from the Store Championship that was reported on the forums recently, we find that Rieekan did really well. . . Could it be, because a lack of Ackbar? I don't know.

All in all I am worried about this Saturday's store championship over at Dice Age in Vancouver Washington. . . Got to compete with Shmitty. . .

Thanks for your feedback so far guys, keep it coming !

You really aren't making faction choice much easier though...

Do I need to go get the little Mexican Girl meme right now?

Get both! In the long term that is my advice, to get a chance to play with all the new toys and all the cards. :-)

However, in the shorter term it depends on your play style. Personally I love the Empire both fluff wise and because they are fun and aggressive to play.

Ultimately, it's probably going to be both I fear Probably the Empire first for the ISD love, to crush Admiral Ackbar players with contempt, and because I still kick ass with Wave 1 Rebels, haha

I think in Reb vs Imp, Reb has the advantage but the typical anti-imp rebel build has a much harder time against other rebs.

While the anti-reb imperial build works okay in the blue on blue match-up especially against a rhymer ball.

Since there are only two factions you have to consider the blue-on-blue match-ups as a big part of the meta.

IMO, I am still finding that a wrong move with the Rebs is more punishing given the lower hull values. Conversely, you can get some ridiculous damage scores from those same rebs in a turn when your maniacal plan triggers just the way you want it while I think the imps tend to be more consistent.

Or maybe its because I run ISDI's with OrdExp, leading shots, and vader at the same time...

IMO, I am still finding that a wrong move with the Rebs is more punishing given the lower hull values. Conversely, you can get some ridiculous damage scores from those same rebs in a turn when your maniacal plan triggers just the way you want it while I think the imps tend to be more consistent.

Or maybe its because I run ISDI's with OrdExp, leading shots, and vader at the same time...

Agreed. I find Rebels to be the more intense faction to fly, with a mistake acutely punishable. Bit like playing Dark Eldar in 40k. Imperials are more like Space Marines, sheer firepower and resilience can see you through some of your mistakes.

I think they both have their weak points and their strong points. the Imps mostly need to get in close fast and the Rebs will mostly want to stay at long range. both want to hit one or two targets per turn with everything they can while being out of range for the rest of the other guys ships and fighters. There in lies the crux of the battle. Who ever can pull that range maneuver targeting trick off best (Local superior fire power) will win every time.

If all my ships can fire on one or two of yours and only that one or two can fire back that should start a down slide and win the game no matter which force you use. and don't be in a hurry to get into combat if your ships don't have advantage at the point of contact.

I feel both factions are finely balanced onna knifes edge!

There is so much variation available to both factions now, there is no one meta to plan against. What works against 2 ISDs and a Fireball, is going to struggle against a CR90 swarm with Outriggers and A-wings. You can't build for just one plan. Each build needs to be flexible. Imps may be slightly more forgiving, but Rebels have greater variety to mix in.

My best advice, find the Admiral that best suits your play style, and build your lists from there. I prefer bold strikes, that can regroup from the unexpected. Motti and Mon Mothma are my personal favorites, so my collection suits them. I have 4 VSDs, 2 ISDs, 2 GSDs, and 2 raiders. 4 imp fighter packs, and 2 R & V packs so far. For Rebels, I have 5 Neb Bs, 4 CR90s, 3 AFMK IIs, 2 MC30s (so far), and one MC80.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and start sawing....

I think Rebels are stronger at present as they have access to better gimmick list options.

With two balanced fleets (Say 1 x large, 1 x medium, 1 x small, plus some fighters), sure, the fleet strength of the factions is pretty balanced and it should come down to game play.

But Rebels have options for completely asymmetric fleets that can't really be countered by a balanced Imperial fleet. Whereas I think a well designed rebel list can probably deal with any likely combination the imperials can field.

For example, the "MSU" MC30/CR90 lists led by any of Riekan, Monmothma or Ackbar, can all do horrendous amounts of attrition to big Imperial ships and basically control the terms of the fight, without having a single big target that is worth dedicating an ISD to destroying (even if it can catch it).

Rebels can also do things like the Riekan zombie CR90 engine techs fleet, again which a balanced Imperial build would have massive trouble dealing with. There isn't an Imperial equivalent to this.

?

Ultimately, it's probably going to be both I fear Probably the Empire first for the ISD love, to crush Admiral Ackbar players with contempt, and because I still kick ass with Wave 1 Rebels, haha

I think that's a really good observation - the Empire gets a huge boost from wave 2 (i.e. the ISD) whereas I think wave 1 Rebel builds are still very competitive.

Ultimately, it's probably going to be both I fear Probably the Empire first for the ISD love, to crush Admiral Ackbar players with contempt, and because I still kick ass with Wave 1 Rebels, haha

I think that's a really good observation - the Empire gets a huge boost from wave 2 (i.e. the ISD) whereas I think wave 1 Rebel builds are still very competitive.

Glad I haven't been the only one noticing this I don't know, I feel Wave 1 is still pretty strong compared to Wave 2 (which I like, so that purchases are based on the cool factor rather than the need to catch up competitively).

I'm probably going to keep playing the Old Geezer Dodonna and shout things like "it was better in my time !" for fun

That is actually a very sound piece of advice I like playing with different Admirals just so I can have varied playstyles and throw different builds without being pinned down into one type of fleet build strategy. That probably explains why I like Garm and Tarkin so much, I should probably play with them more often

Personally I'm totally unimpressed with Ackbar as an Admiral. When you get right down to it he has an ability that comes with a drawback, costs nearly 40 points and offers you nothing more than an opportunity to leverage an ability based on the luck of the dice to produce something. It's the same reason I don't like a Neb-B Salvation, its a mechanic driven entirely on luck.

I prefer my strategies to be more consistent and reliable and that's what you get from every other Admiral in the Rebel fleet and always at significantly lower cost. So if there is some sort of consensus about Rebel advantage as a result of Ackbar, I really don't see it.

I agree with whoever said that Wave II had virtually no impact the leveling or changing of the balance of the game. Every list that was run in wave II is as valid today as it was before it was released, at least for the Rebels. I think the biggest impact on the game came from the new squadrons.

A few quick thoughts:

1. Ackbar is very powerful if you build a list that does what he wants to do anyways. In other words, lists focused around the AF and circling are more powerful with Ackbar.
2. I don't think either side has a major advantage at most levels of play. I have noticed that when you really push it to the limit, it's not so much the side as the things internal to the side that shift around (e.g. I haven't seen many top end lists using the Neb B or Dodonna lately, but rebels overall are doing fine).
3. I think small ship spam has gotten significantly more playable due to TRC.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and start sawing....

I think Rebels are stronger at present as they have access to better gimmick list options.

With two balanced fleets (Say 1 x large, 1 x medium, 1 x small, plus some fighters), sure, the fleet strength of the factions is pretty balanced and it should come down to game play.

But Rebels have options for completely asymmetric fleets that can't really be countered by a balanced Imperial fleet. Whereas I think a well designed rebel list can probably deal with any likely combination the imperials can field.

For example, the "MSU" MC30/CR90 lists led by any of Riekan, Monmothma or Ackbar, can all do horrendous amounts of attrition to big Imperial ships and basically control the terms of the fight, without having a single big target that is worth dedicating an ISD to destroying (even if it can catch it).

Rebels can also do things like the Riekan zombie CR90 engine techs fleet, again which a balanced Imperial build would have massive trouble dealing with. There isn't an Imperial equivalent to this.

?

Can you give us these lists?

I've only lost one tournament match with my mon mothma rebels and that was a loss with 42 points or something in the diffirence so yeah, rebels are op .

On a more serious note I think the game balance is very good due to the fact that faction is just a small part of all the variables than a game like X-wing.

You need to pick the right commander, missions, initiative bid and then deploy and try to complete your (hopefully) plan and counter your opponents in just 6 turns. If it was just a game where you played to the death then I think factions and ships balance might give more advantage.

Sure some ships will just be very powerful but a bad deployment or bad timed command might tip the scale to a less impressive ship. With all the options of wave 2 on us I don't think one faction is higher than the other.