A good way to deal with TLTs (and brobots to a degree) would be to create a card that limits or a single target from making multiple attacks against a defender. I'm not a good wordsmith, but something to the effect of, "After you defend an attack, the attacker may perform no other attacks against you this round." Make it cost 2 points and slap it in the modification slot. If desired, put limitations on it that limit it to small ships or ships with less than 3 agility. The mod will be great against gunner and TLTs, but worhtless against most else.

you put it the way as if it's tlt and brobots that dominate the meta and not ps8+ ace fest

And I've seen this before.

An easily used and overly powerful addition to the game starts killing off other squads. There's a lot of hype over its power and as time goes on it becomes more and more controversial. Some will call it overpowered, others will defend it by saying that it has its counters and that you simply have to play better: it gets beaten so it's not invincible. However, squads that do not incorporate a way to deal with end up on average dying out, you're forced to consider how you'll deal with it. In the meantime, the list archetype best equipped to deal with this game element grows in prevalance to the point where it becomes itself maligned and hated.

Yes! Yes! Someone else who gets it!

Twin Laser Turrets bear all the warning signs of an overpowered card. I've seen it before: the controversial discussions, the way it worms its way into the metagame discussion, how everybody agrees it's strong just not whether it's too strong, the way it becomes more and more common in the highest level of tournament play, the way people argue that if you can't beat it you just need to get better at the game because apparently it's only strong against unskilled players even though all the pros are using it against other pros.

That people can't agree whether Twin Laser Turrets counter high-agility ships by delivering more hits than they can cancel (even if the damage is capped at 1), or low-agility ships by chewing through their hull and shields too fast is a huge warning sign.

Twin Laser Turrets are supposed to be good against fat large ships by dealing enough damage through their mitigation and onto their massive hull and shields to destroy them faster than an equivalent points value of Twin laser Turret bearers dies. In other words, they counter fat ships by being more efficient at dealing damage. Think about that.

And what counters Twin Laser Turrets? Enough evade results to completely wipe out three attack dice twice in the same turn. Without range 3 bonuses. That doesn't sound like a counter to Twin Laser Turrets which is in turn weak to its own counters, that sounds like a ship with overpowered defense that will shrug off all but the most broken attacks.

There was a store championship won with 4 HWKs, all bearing Twin Laser Turrets. Pretty much anything can win, as long as it has Twin Laser Turrets. It's exactly like what happened with Jace the Mind Sculptor and Stoneforge Mystic in Magic: The Gathering. At first glance, it looked like the Caw-Blade deck was the problem, but maybe not such a serious problem because there are several other viable archetypes. But the other decks either had Jace, or Mystic, or both, and Caw Blade was merely the strongest version of a deck that had both. In the format where you can play any card ever printed, Jace and Mystic are still powerful enough to build decks around and show up all the time.

We have MajorJuggler, the person who obsessively calculates offense and defense efficiencies and tracks tournament results livid with anger and bitter that Twin Laser Turret Y-Wings are so much more efficient than jousting than any other ship, even before you account for the ability to attack out of arc.

In theory Twin Laser Turret Y-Wings should outclass all other ships that rely on points-efficient jousting, like B-Wings, and leave only ships that try to combine synergistic upgrades and pilot abilities, or outmaneuver the enemy ships to avoid shots.

In practice B-wings and all other jousters are vanishing from tournament play, to the point that people are searching for a B-Wing fix. The previous poster child for jousting efficiency is no longer good enough .

Twin Laser Turrets are undercosted and will only continue to become more and more dominant until they are banned, erratted, or outclassed by something even more powerful.

you're trying to hang the sins of phantom menace, phat woopwoopEU turretwing and acefest on TLT alone.

vanila jousters went extinct before it was even announced!

I'm actually drawing a parallel between TIE phantom vs Fat Falcon and TLT vs Acewing. I thought that was obvious.

I'm actually drawing a parallel between TIE phantom vs Fat Falcon and TLT vs Acewing. I thought that was obvious.

it's a parallel that doesn't exist, because that was Tie phantom & Fat PWT vs Fat PWT

which later became Soontir & Fat PWT vs Fat PWT vs Brobots

as of wave 7, it's more TLT vs Stress TLT vs Brobots vs Acewing (which can be split into imperial Palp acewing and rebel r2 acewing) with fringe elements of crackswarm

not counting all the crazy cool **** we get to see at some store champs ofc

you're trying to hang the sins of phantom menace, phat woopwoopEU turretwing and acefest on TLT alone.

jousters went extinct before it was even announced!

Brobots *are* jousters... so extinct is a bit hyperbolic.

TLTs are just slightly too consistent damage versus almost everything. Even the high agility aces have low health and everytually get worn down: ex. Vader with VI will die in 3 or 4 turns or so to remnant TLTs.

They don't just counter high ps stuff.

you're trying to hang the sins of phantom menace, phat woopwoopEU turretwing and acefest on TLT alone.

jousters went extinct before it was even announced!

Brobots *are* jousters... so extinct is a bit hyperbolic.

THE LAST BASTION OF GLORIOUS JOUSTWING!

but yes, see your point here.

The most common theme in the TLT complaint threads is;

"I am a much better player than that other guy who is new/lazy/stupid. But he used TLT, and won despite my clearly Leet skillz."

If you brought 4 TIEs to his 2 TLTs, and couldn't drop them, you did something seriously wrong. YOU did something WRONG when you were setting up, or on the approach. They don't have your action economy, they don't have your damage output, they don't have your defense, and they don't have the granularity of 4 ships. All they have is a 360 degree arc, but that sits on a ship that cannot dodge your arcs. YOU have an enormous advantage in this matchup. If you chose to go after a hard target while they fired away, you made a mistake. You have the advantage of speed, tighter turns, and barrel roll. If they were able to control range on you once the shooting started, YOU made a mistake.

High point cost aces (like Blail Berg is talking about) are at a disadvantage because of their high point density (for example, Soontir costs over 30 points for only 3 health, so at least 10 points per damage). But the hyperbolic claim that TLTs dominate everything, or frankly that they dominate anything, is wrong. This isn't just an opinion, it is borne out in the actual success rate of TLT spam in tournament after tournament.

TLTs are just slightly too consistent damage versus almost everything. Even the high agility aces have low health and everytually get worn down: ex. Vader with VI will die in 3 or 4 turns or so to remnant TLTs.

They don't just counter high ps stuff.

TLTs have a MUCH easier time hitting dodgers than a jouster would, but the idea the Vader's countered v them is wrong

Vader's ****** only if you look at the dice and ignore his sexy shenanigans + high PS punch (which can be combined with other high PS stuff to kill TLTs)

The only time vader's screwed is if Vader constantly lets 2+ TLTs open up on him per turn and by then that's 100% on the Vader player. You don't take Vader expecting a tank (I hope) but a high damage HIGH PS arc dodger

TLTs hurting vader isn't anything special either; they're not even that good at it. try leaving Vader in view of Brobots and see what comes of it (nothing good )

TLTs can be extremely annoying to fly against, but I credit them for teaching me to become a better pilot. In my last store championship, I was facing 2 TLT scum Ys both down to near hull with only Vader at 4 health, no EU. I had to kill one for the modified win. I masterfully predicted my opponents moves and kept barrel rolling into range 1 of 1 Y. I pulled out the modified win as time expired with a little help from the dice gods on one roll when Vader was down to 1 health.

The most common theme in the TLT complaint threads is;

"I am a much better player than that other guy who is new/lazy/stupid. But he used TLT, and won despite my clearly Leet skillz."

spam in tournament after tournament.

Sad but true, and quite funny.

I don't think it's healthy for this game if the variety of competitive lists at tournaments is limited to, "Will this list do well against multiple TLTs?

you're not going to win much of anything if you're limiting yourself to that

for example, obsidian swarm wrecks TLTs

then you run into palp aces and can't hit **** between the arc dodging and green dice. This is why you instead go crackswarm, in the hopes that crackshot will help punch through their defenses

TLTs are merely a minor part of all the lists you have to be able to deal with. The actual list goes more like

• Can I deal with high PS aces with tons of dice modifications + high agility?
• Can I deal with high damage brobots with tons of dice modifications?
• Can I deal with rebel regeneration with tons of dice modifications?
• Can I deal with dice independent stress effects assisted by TLTs?

and

Can I deal with just TLTs?

which is somewhere at the bottom

fixating on TLTs is a good way to not improve, because they're nowhere near the only powerful thing in the game and they're nowhere near the most polarizing.

That's part of the problem.

Facing constant TLT's isn't the problem. It's the fact that most things that beat TLT well are kind of awful against Acewing. Like you said, 7 Obsidian Squadron pilots. And then you'll finish a game against a Palp Aces player with it having done 2 damage to Vader at best.

My meta is Acewing dominated and still has some Fat Turrets in it. But there are some quad TLT players around so if I bring my 60 point Boba and Vader list I could lose to those, and if I bring 5x Autothruster Alpha to troll the no skillers playing turrets still, then I face Palp Aces and as long as my opponent doesn't go out of his way to get bumped at range 1 I lose.

The most hilarious thing about quad TLT is when your opponent realizes that they can just K-Turn with them all and never have anything in their croissants. Then they get lucky with their unmodified range 1 primaries and put a hit hit crit on something. Neat.

Ordnance will put an end to this madness though. Early on in wave 8's meta you'll be able to plop down triple U-Boat or quad (Gamma) Bomber and have a good chance against most wave 7 lists, which should then change the meta to stuff that deals with triple U-boat and quad bombers and missile Z swarms.

I don't see "having a lot of competitive options to account for" as "madness"

seems more the game's getting better

besides lets not kid ourselves, imp Boba and Alpha squadrons have problems far beyond TLT and acewing

Unfortunately the Imperial Firespray and Alpha Squadron Pilots are some of the worst ships in the Imperial fleet.

That they don't stack up against TLT is a non-issue. They don't stand up against most things.

If the game was still jouster oriented, I could just pay a single point or two and out joust the **** out of quad TLT with higher pilot skill and more ships. Problem is that a squadron of pure jousters loses hard to Acewing, so jousters aren't viable.

The Phantom and Fat Turretwing swept away jousters originally and Acewing is doing a banner job of continuing that trend. The fact that when someone has a 24 point hole in their list and they automatically just put a TLT Y-Wing there, or when they have ~50 points they put 2 TLT Y's there is a testament to the fact that those 24 or 50 points of jousters are already obsolete, not that TLT is shoving jousters out.

5 TIE Fighters already cannot kill a 60 point Dash or Fat Han. 4 TIE Fighters already couldn't kill a 48 point Corran. 3 Ties cannot kill a 35 point Soontir. We've already learned this lesson, jousters have been power creeped out of the game.

So when something that /doesn't/ fail against an equal amount of points put into a fat turret or Acewing comes along, of course it's going to replace it.

It's fine though, wave 8 ordnance will put a dent in Acewing.

Also, Alpha Squadrons with AT are well worth 20 points. 5 of them beat turret based lists pretty well. Likewise a 60 point Imperial VI Boba can pull some shenanigans against aces.

I LOVE TWIN LAZOOOOR TURRETS!

I LOVE their consistant damage each round, I run a tlt y-wing and stressbot y-wing and I love it!

I want quick games, where ships fkn die, not 4 hour games when we each have 2-4 ships....

I posted my suggested fix before:

Just make the TLT not count as a secondary weapon. It does exactly what ffg intended. Hits low agility ships.

My main problem with them is they are boring as heck to play against (Easy mode indeed). I played against 3 when 2 and 1 versus them in my SC then two of them battled for the title, it was more boring than playing the 4 pancake lists from last year, because it was all about who rolled better. I normally stay and watch the final, but when I saw the lists I packed up and headed home so I didn't have to watch that dreck of a game. I'm not even sure who won, but frankly don't care either.

TLTs were a good addition to the game.

Their only problem is that in hammering down falcons, they gunned away B-wings (and this G1as) and X-wings (And thus Kithraxzes) as well - which is to say, to bring down fat Han involved accidentally knocking out low agility jousters in the process.

They also knocked out the other turret options, which actually annoys me even more - I loved ionhogs, darn it!

Will balance be restored? Sure. How? Heck if I know. The simplest solution (more expense) is a nonstarter, so we'll have to wait and see.

...Though I kinda hope it isn't with yet another upgrade. I feel like these balance patches are starting to really clog up my build options.

Unfortunately the Imperial Firespray and Alpha Squadron Pilots are some of the worst ships in the Imperial fleet.

That they don't stack up against TLT is a non-issue. They don't stand up against most things.

Nah, it's just meta being oriented on token-stacking arc-dodging PS8+

They're not bad, they just swim shark-filled waters of Acewing!

Unfortunately the Imperial Firespray and Alpha Squadron Pilots are some of the worst ships in the Imperial fleet.

That they don't stack up against TLT is a non-issue. They don't stand up against most things.

Nah, it's just meta being oriented on token-stacking arc-dodging PS8+

They're not bad, they just swim shark-filled waters of Acewing!

no they're pretty bad

didn't show up at all during the tie swarm days, including wave 2, and ace-wing had nothing to do with it

Unfortunately the Imperial Firespray and Alpha Squadron Pilots are some of the worst ships in the Imperial fleet.

That they don't stack up against TLT is a non-issue. They don't stand up against most things.

Nah, it's just meta being oriented on token-stacking arc-dodging PS8+

They're not bad, they just swim shark-filled waters of Acewing!

no they're pretty bad

didn't show up at all during the tie swarm days, including wave 2, and ace-wing had nothing to do with it

Jack of all trades problem, you're outjousted by jousters, out-dodged by dodgers and eaten alive by PWTs

And yep, being big based is a problem, not a blessing D:

Maybe 4 attacks in front arc could have fixed that

Alpha squadron is a blocker. Like A-wing.

Alpha squadron is a blocker. Like A-wing.

Except it costs 1 - 3 points more and is even squishier.

It also happens to be a blocker in a faction that already possesses another blocker that is 6 points cheaper without being any less durable. Alpha therefore has no purpose in life.

TLTs are strong, yes, but not as imbalanced as pre-nerf phantom. As much as I love to play palpmobile and other acewing archetypes, I wouldn't want a game where everyone ditches slow, tanky ships in favor of arc-dodgers either. Quad Y-wings are fine. If you can't tackle them that's your problem.

Only 1 out of 6 championships in my local area are won by TLTs, and that's not even a quad list (only Miranda & stresshog uses TLT). The rest are won by a good mix of Imps (Ace+Tempest mini swarm) , Scum (Double Firespray) and Rebel (Miranda Corran) lists

FFG should just focus on buffing/errata-ing pilots that get no love. Lorrir is a joke. You see Blue Ace and Zeta Ace over there? Shame on you lieutenant! Plus some ships are still suffering from monopilot monobuild syndrome.

Ffg does seem rather incapable of releasing powerful small base generics unless they fail to predict how successful they'll be with a certain upgrade