Well, re-reading it I can only say he's rooting it, but ignoring the game design general idea

the idea that every squad and every choice has to have a COUNTER-MATCHUP.

something that it dies to unless you show miraculous skill, the enemy fails miserably and dice mess up the situation big deal

like IG-4000 vs ThugLife

IGs EAT THEM ALIVE, FLAY THEIR HULLS AND...ahem...

The triangle of counter matchups during wave 1-2 was

Jouster outshoots Turret, Turret shoots at ArcDodgers despite their reposition, ArcDodgers kill jousters because 90% of guns point the wrong way.

With EU prominence Turrets became partially Dodgers, and J>T>D>J became J<T>D>J hence the PWT_spam

and with AT era dawning Dodgers have upper hand over Turrets J<T<D>J and that's the reason Acewing is the thing

What can be done to completely turn the tide and make the circle complete (Alas the opposite way than Wave 1)

J<T<D<J is something my small mind can't understand.

Sorry, but jousting as a strategy is ridiculous. Flying into each other and shooting made sense in WW1, and even then only in the beginning. Fighter combat is all about position and shooting while not getting shot at.

IMHO you're overestimating Soontir. He's just one fragile ship and his tokens can only last him so long. Besides, there's tons of ways to deal with him. Hide in asteroids, so he has to worry about not flying into one (which may deny him that perfect shot, or force him to reposition instead of turtle), use Tacticians and Flechette torpedoes to double-stress him, use mines and bombs to make his life miserable and deny him maneuvers. Bring Homing Missiles, Concussion Missiles or Proton Torpedoes and see how like likes 4 dice vs his 3. Kill the rest of his list. But don't expect and demand for a 14th century fighting style to be effective against him.

EDIT: if you really want to joust Soontir, bring Ten Numb with VI and Mangler cannon and watch Soontir run in terror.

My impression from the games I've seen is that very capable players tend to start with some kind of joust, because neither allows the opponent to flank him. It's just very hard to avoid such a situation in the early game.

And it may not be historically accurate, the films do reflect this situation. They appear to fly just straight at eachother, probably even more direct than in the typical game.

My impression from the games I've seen is that very capable players tend to start with some kind of joust, because neither allows the opponent to flank him. It's just very hard to avoid such a situation in the early game.

And it may not be historically accurate, the films do reflect this situation. They appear to fly just straight at eachother, probably even more direct than in the typical game.

Sorry, but jousting as a strategy is ridiculous. Flying into each other and shooting made sense in WW1, and even then only in the beginning. Fighter combat is all about position and shooting while not getting shot at.

IMHO you're overestimating Soontir. He's just one fragile ship and his tokens can only last him so long. Besides, there's tons of ways to deal with him. Hide in asteroids, so he has to worry about not flying into one (which may deny him that perfect shot, or force him to reposition instead of turtle), use Tacticians and Flechette torpedoes to double-stress him, use mines and bombs to make his life miserable and deny him maneuvers. Bring Homing Missiles, Concussion Missiles or Proton Torpedoes and see how like likes 4 dice vs his 4+AT+EVADE+FOCUS+PALP, and that's in case you managed to TL him and he stayed at range and in arc, lol. Kill the rest of his list. But don't expect and demand for a 14th century fighting style to be effective against him.

EDIT: if you really want to joust Soontir, bring Ten Numb with VI and Mangler cannon and watch Soontir run in terror.

Jousting means dodging enemy fire by planning, and not post-maneuver "I SEE WHERE YOU ARE" action movement.

If you think jousting is just 1-forward-1forward-Kturn you're a bad bad jouster

Trying to hide in the asteroids is bad for josuters, not soontir. Because HE has the upper hand in maneuvering, not you.

and he's one, while you have many many more bodies

Sorry, but jousting as a strategy is ridiculous. Flying into each other and shooting made sense in WW1, and even then only in the beginning. Fighter combat is all about position and shooting while not getting shot at.

The problem is, if you disregard jousting as a tactic, then what is left for the jousters? Do you turn the X Wings and their ilk into arc dodgers, flipping and boosting all over the place where the dial is just an afterthought? The main thrust of this game should be dials and the double blind choices made by the players.

and he's one, while you have many many more bodies

Besides, he's rather predictable when using PtL, so setting a trap and/or mining his path is not that difficult. Except people hate mines and bombs for some reason.

As for asteroids - if you're the one leading him, you're at an advantage. The point is to limit his maneuvers and force him to use his actions for repositioning instead of turtling. You can afford a move through a rock, he can't.

As someone said upthread - Paul Heaver's Worlds list is basically JoustWing. I've been running a variant of it that replaces the TLT Y with Tarn, for even more joust-y goodness. And now Chimps are here to power a whole new generation of low-PS ****-kickers.

The death of jousting has been greatly exaggerated.

and he's one, while you have many many more bodies

Now you're starting to talk sense... so if you have more bodies, why not set up overlapping fields of fire? Have several people shooting him? As we all know, green dice only work for so long and Soontir doesn't exactly have a margin of error.

Besides, he's rather predictable when using PtL, so setting a trap and/or mining his path is not that difficult. Except people hate mines and bombs for some reason.

As for asteroids - if you're the one leading him, you're at an advantage. The point is to limit his maneuvers and force him to use his actions for repositioning instead of turtling. You can afford a move through a rock, he can't.

In the best possible outcome that's 2-3 ships shooting at him, because you can't cover all the field, due to it's super-dial and repositioning.

Even with that in mind, he rolls 2 evades naturally and has 2 failsafes. (1 if blocked)

he CAN outshoot a couple 3+focus attacks enemies in frontal assault.

Mines? The ones you have more problems with than him? And the ones that are put with backside 90% of the time? And ones that cost actions? And the one that cost too much for their performance? Or maybe the ones that don't work THAT reliably as advertised?

Ahem, bombs&Mines, in a nutshell!

I am a middle-aged vet tabletop gamer who is only a couple months into X-Wing, so I bring a perspective of a person with lots of experience in gaming with very little context/history/expectaions/baggage around X-Wing's progression as various waves have changed the game. I have a busy career and a family, so I know the meta mainly through the lens of a reader and lurker than through the crucible of tourney play and whatnot.

Theorist posted this comment to his own article:

"Simplifying the whole article into this!

When you convert cards that effectively mean +1 damage dealt into a percentage of the target’s health, it becomes immediately apparent that AGI-defended ships take a bigger hit from these cards than health-defended ships. With not many cards that ramp the effectiveness of AGI for common ships like TIE Fighter and T-65 X-wing, these ships become unplayable levels of inefficient when facing any cards that buff accuracy."

I see this, and noticed it myself. I am just not sure that it bothers me so much. I was not here when TIE swarms were all the rage and so I don't have any expectation that they should re-emerge as top-tier.

Aren't they still seen in tourneies and perform well now despite not being as prevelent as other lists though?

I am confident that ship-specifc upgrades like the Integrated Astro are the right way to go to augment specific ships like the T-65 he noted (although it looks more like a ship that relies on hull/shields more that AGL), but I think upgrades like his Wingleader can be dangerous as the developers would then have to use that card as a lens to temper EVERY special ability they seek to add to a pilot card. Even putting Dark Curse's ability on a swarm looks OP to me, but I will defer to the others who play test it for a verdict on that.

He asserted that low PS is supposed to counter high PS. This is not something that I hold to as neccessary. As a person walking into the game now, and believing that the game should have a Star Wars vibe to it, I feel as though it is supposed to be a game of ace pilots with gumps added in as filler and blockers. I don't have expectations that the game should be somethng other than that. If you have a couple aces on one side and a slew of fresh from the academy pilots on the other, I think the aces should have the edge. That feels much more like Star Wars to me.

There are certain things in the current game that read too much like an easy button to me, namely TLT stresshog &

Palpatine. When everybody and their brother have the same list, it is an indication of a balance issue. We will see if the alteration to TLT will impact anything. I think an easy fix to overuse or underuse is simply for FFG to give errata changing the cost.

Sorry, but jousting as a strategy is ridiculous. Flying into each other and shooting made sense in WW1, and even then only in the beginning.

Funny you should say that since X-Wing's essential mechanics first appeared as the Wings of War...an FFG WWI flight game.

Counter high PS. This is not something that I hold to as neccessary. As a person walking into the game now, and believing that the game should have a Star Wars vibe to it, I feel as though it is supposed to be a game of ace pilots with gumps added in as filler and blockers.

That's what we have. A game with no real ways of countering the acewing.

The reason behind 'every player, their brother and guinea pg having' a roster that's made up of PS8+ pilots and filler

That's what we have. A game with no real ways of countering the acewing.

Not entirely true, as the Stresshog does it splendidly.

That's what we have. A game with no real ways of countering the acewing.

Not entirely true, as the Stresshog does it splendidly.

Despite all the efforts the meta is still PS8+ acewing. So it did it's best but still failed :C

Also yes. I think a logical hole exists in Theorist's idea that you having just 1 or 2 PS above the other squad should be enough to beat it that way and that if youre playing PS 2 vs PS 9, the last 7 points of bidding do you no good.

PS isn't all by itself, sometimes we just really want the pilot ability and that allows us to concentrate into one package a powerful mobile unit. Ex. there's also no way for instance to get Darth Vader's insanely good ability without also paying 7 points up the nose for his PS.

Warpman, can you cut the ace-wing screaming? We hear you. Let's talk about the long and moderately well worded article.

and he's one, while you have many many more bodies

Now you're starting to talk sense... so if you have more bodies, why not set up overlapping fields of fire? Have several people shooting him? As we all know, green dice only work for so long and Soontir doesn't exactly have a margin of error.

Besides, he's rather predictable when using PtL, so setting a trap and/or mining his path is not that difficult. Except people hate mines and bombs for some reason.

As for asteroids - if you're the one leading him, you're at an advantage. The point is to limit his maneuvers and force him to use his actions for repositioning instead of turtling. You can afford a move through a rock, he can't.

In the best possible outcome that's 2-3 ships shooting at him, because you can't cover all the field, due to it's super-dial and repositioning.

Even with that in mind, he rolls 2 evades naturally and has 2 failsafes. (1 if blocked)

he CAN outshoot a couple 3+focus attacks enemies in frontal assault.

Mines? The ones you have more problems with than him? And the ones that are put with backside 90% of the time? And ones that cost actions? And the one that cost too much for their performance? Or maybe the ones that don't work THAT reliably as advertised?

Ahem, bombs&Mines, in a nutshell!

As for mines - a proximity mine on a TLT Y-wing is just evil. The look on the opponents face when he boosts into R1 of a TLT and next turn you drop a prox mine on his Soontir and he has to eat 3 red dice which he can do nothing about - priceless. Sure, it's situational, but if your opponent has to take this stuff into account life suddenly becomes rather difficult for him.

Same with torpedoes - if you don't catch him in arc on turn N, you will on turn N+1, and the TL stays there if you don't use it. In fact, not shooting the torpedo on the turn you grab a TL is good for you, as next turn you can use focus to boost your shot. And a R3 arc is wide enough that he probably won't be able to escape.

Another thought: Soontir is on the very top of the "impossible to hit irritating bastard" scale. There's Soontir, and then there's a huge gap behind him and only then does other difficult to hit stuff appear. He's an exception. You can't balance stuff to Soontir, because if you create something that reliably hits Soontir, you will create a monster that makes the green dice of every other ship in the game irrelevant.

Soontir is supposed to be the guy you can't simply shoot in the face and expect to hit. You need to set a trap, exploit his weaknesses (stress, low hull points, dependance on actions) and then deal the killing blow. A stressed, tokenless Soontir is a very sorry sight.

and he's one, while you have many many more bodies

Now you're starting to talk sense... so if you have more bodies, why not set up overlapping fields of fire? Have several people shooting him? As we all know, green dice only work for so long and Soontir doesn't exactly have a margin of error.

Besides, he's rather predictable when using PtL, so setting a trap and/or mining his path is not that difficult. Except people hate mines and bombs for some reason.

As for asteroids - if you're the one leading him, you're at an advantage. The point is to limit his maneuvers and force him to use his actions for repositioning instead of turtling. You can afford a move through a rock, he can't.

In the best possible outcome that's 2-3 ships shooting at him, because you can't cover all the field, due to it's super-dial and repositioning.

Even with that in mind, he rolls 2 evades naturally and has 2 failsafes. (1 if blocked)

he CAN outshoot a couple 3+focus attacks enemies in frontal assault.

Mines? The ones you have more problems with than him? And the ones that are put with backside 90% of the time? And ones that cost actions? And the one that cost too much for their performance? Or maybe the ones that don't work THAT reliably as advertised?

Ahem, bombs&Mines, in a nutshell!

He rolls, or he doesn't.

Soontir is supposed to be the guy you can't simply shoot in the face and expect to hit. You need to set a trap, exploit his weaknesses (stress, low hull points, dependance on actions) and then deal the killing blow. A stressed, tokenless Soontir is a very sorry sight.

*sounds of vader force-choking a crit up his squint throat*

we need moar vaders)

If you understand how to play generics it's pretty easy to hunt down things like YTs and Decimators, which are ships that 2-die attacks are very effective against. Lo and behold, TLTs are also very effective against these ships and are more reliable so a lot of the food for Z-95s and academies is gone.

People say c3p0 ***** on 2-die attacks and it just makes me laugh because 3p0 is 5/8 of an evade. If you put enough arcs to do serious damage to a YT it's not going to matter which defensive crew he takes. The defensive crew as designed at the moment that are actually good tend to be geared toward one big attack rather than many small ones(mostly offering one-off benefits over things like rerolls).

I used to play Z-95s a lot and I know their strengths and weaknesses, but pretty much any time I think i'll need swarm-type attacks i'll probably just trade in two Zs for a TLT Y. Maybe improved missiles will make things different. I'll certainly give missiles and torpedoes a try with chips now.

I've read the whole thing, but now I've forgotten all the posts I wanted to respond to, but here we go.

1) Attack dice vs. defense dice. Some of you may not know this, but the first time this game was demoed at GenCon in 2011 (I think?) the attack and defense dice were equal, and there was no such thing as red maneuvers. There were too immediately apparent problems with this. First off, the K-turn situation meant that all the ships did was flip back and forth and roll dice. Second, the games lasted forever because there were so many successful evasions of shots. It was awful. This is why people keep saying that the game has to be the way it is in regards to dice.

I had something else I was going to say about jousting with 4 Alpha Squadron Pilots and a shuttle, but now it doesn't seem relevant to the conversation.

I've read the whole thing, but now I've forgotten all the posts I wanted to respond to, but here we go.

1) Attack dice vs. defense dice. Some of you may not know this, but the first time this game was demoed at GenCon in 2011 (I think?) the attack and defense dice were equal, and there was no such thing as red maneuvers. There were too immediately apparent problems with this. First off, the K-turn situation meant that all the ships did was flip back and forth and roll dice. Second, the games lasted forever because there were so many successful evasions of shots. It was awful. This is why people keep saying that the game has to be the way it is in regards to dice.

I had something else I was going to say about jousting with 4 Alpha Squadron Pilots and a shuttle, but now it doesn't seem relevant to the conversation.

The situation you describe about defense being equal to attack is the real problem that Theorist failed to understand and blamed on highly accurate, 3+ attack dice for some reason. Because that's happening now with Poe, Soontir, Miranda, etc. and all the regen and defensive tech they have. If I had a dime for every time a Poe player got significantly more than a shield upgrade's worth of shields off of a regen droid, I'd probably have a dollar or two, lol.

Theorist doesn't understand that. Highly accurate shots are actually neccesary to break through the equal or better than attack defense these ships have.

I have nothing against Theorist and I remember him being right about the Phantom being broken, but on this he's wrong.

I think that many people here are simplifying Theorist's conclusions and end up not seeing the broader picture. Ships with 2 and 3 agility are greatly hit by all the attack-buffing cards that we have at the moment in comparison to ships with lower ability. I think he is spot on.

About being a narcissist, well... I know a lot of x-wing players who are, especially bloggers who still write or don't anymore but used to. You can either let that get to you or not.

This line, in particular, stood out to me as a succinct, cogent summation of one of the developing power-creep issues in the game:

"ATT 3 w/ Focus is now below average firepower."

To the degree that's true, it's because we have (1) an exceptions-based ruleset that (2) is always growing. But since the whole piece is vague and theoretical, it's hard to demonstrate whether it's true or not. Of course, one could take a look at List Juggler and actually provide some empirical backup, but Theorist doesn't bother to do that.

One thing, though -- this is not something you ever want to write in an essay meant to be persuasive to complete strangers:

"I’ve been calling things pretty much perfectly since Wave 1, and I’ve learned over the years to trust my uncanny intuition."

Part of the reason it's unpersuasive is because it's fatuously self-regarding, and the other part is because it's actually really easy to find things he got drastically wrong. (Does anyone else remember when he was promoting Rookie Pilot + Stealth Device?)

Theorist is a well known contributor to the community... many consider him to be one of the top "minds" in the game.

Theorist is a relentlessly longwinded narcissist, and that's it. He has very little understanding of this game, of game design in general, or of how to interact with other humans. He also has a bad habit of convincing himself of an argument and then ignoring any and all contravening evidence, logic, or expertise.

He raises some valid concerns in the article, and some of the proposed cards seem like good additions to the game.

He doesn't, and they aren't.

Best line: "It's going to get worse if it doesn't get better." I think he nailed it.

I have high respect for Theorist as we were both around during wave 1 and I've read a lot of his stuff, but that one line made me chuckle.

I have zero respect for Theorist, as we were both around during Wave 1 and I've read a lot of his stuff.

His continued presence at TC is the reason I stopped blogging.

The SINGLE BEST FORUM ENTRY on this site that I've ever read, hands down. I've been following X-Wing and the community for 3 years now and that includes the rambling of Theorist. Much love to Vorpal whom I've also followed for that time. Anything that comes from Theorist, no matter if it's remotely valid or not, is ultimately drowned out and ruined by his monumental self importance and socially awkward attitude and narcissistic behavior. Unfortunately a collection of the online "it" crowd in the X-Wing podcasting community (i.e. those with the loudest voices and additional self importance (Team Covenant "Aces" anyone?) seemingly worship anything that Theorist spews forth. The Team Covenant x-wing community was ruined by these long before their website issues finished it off.

(..)

The SINGLE BEST FORUM ENTRY on this site that I've ever read, hands down. I've been following X-Wing and the community for 3 years now and that includes the rambling of Theorist. Much love to Vorpal whom I've also followed for that time. Anything that comes from Theorist, no matter if it's remotely valid or not, is ultimately drowned out and ruined by his self importance and socially awkward attitude and behavior. Unfortunately a collection of the online "it" crowd in the X-Wing podcasting community (i.e. those with the loudest voices and additional self importance (Team Covenant "Aces" anyone?) seemingly worship anything that Theorist spews forth. The Team Covenant x-wing community was ruined by these long before their website issues finished it off.

Sorry, but to me this just seems like some kind of biggest ego competition and, of course, plain whining. Nothing that I have seen so far supports any of the accusations by Vorpal et al.

Mind you, I don't dislike Vorpal or anyone else, but until I am presented with clear evidence, I cannot simply choose to believe you (especially since I have had a lot of contact with Theorist and other TC aces, and they are genuinely nice people). I have no quirks with anyone at all.

(..)

The SINGLE BEST FORUM ENTRY on this site that I've ever read, hands down. I've been following X-Wing and the community for 3 years now and that includes the rambling of Theorist. Much love to Vorpal whom I've also followed for that time. Anything that comes from Theorist, no matter if it's remotely valid or not, is ultimately drowned out and ruined by his self importance and socially awkward attitude and behavior. Unfortunately a collection of the online "it" crowd in the X-Wing podcasting community (i.e. those with the loudest voices and additional self importance (Team Covenant "Aces" anyone?) seemingly worship anything that Theorist spews forth. The Team Covenant x-wing community was ruined by these long before their website issues finished it off.

Sorry, but to me this just seems like some kind of biggest ego competition and, of course, plain whining. Nothing that I have seen so far supports any of the accusations by Vorpal et al.

Mind you, I don't dislike Vorpal or anyone else, but until I am presented with clear evidence, I cannot simply choose to believe you (especially since I have had a lot of contact with Theorist and other TC aces, and they are genuinely nice people). I have no quirks with anyone at all.

That's fair and I don't expect you to believe me. Again, following the community for 3 years, I know all the things I've seen and read with Theorist and the, now thin, TC community. I was there for the "public" discussions between him and Vorpal, him and Jeff Wilder, among many, many others. I don't think Theorist is a bad guy and admittedly at one point long ago I even asked his opinion on a list. However, long winded article after long winded article, the overwhelming sense of self importance he exhumes was just too much for me. Again, he may be a great guy and if so great, I just put absolutely zero stock into him anymore because of his presentation. In my opinion his articles do raise interesting questions and at times he does make valid points. I do agree with Vorpal and Jeff that, just as often, he gets severe tunnel vision in his beliefs and misses other, equally valid, anti-points to his. To be fair, we all do this from time to time..... but most seem to be able to have a discussion, Theorist, however, is never wrong.

Carry on.

Read the article and all the comments on the actual article as well as the majority of comments here before they became repetitive. We are forgetting a couple if things here. Mainly the correlation between agility and maneuverability. A ship with 3 AGI, if being flown properly, shouldn't be getting shot at in excess (except turrets because turrets) and even against a turret, you have enough movement to stay out of range or go for the doughnut hole. This is a core ideal for a game such as X-wing. Different ships have different t properties which appeal to different players. If you want to arc dodge and fly intelligently in order to avoid getting shot with only three health, you can do that. If you want to "hulk smash" with three ATK, 0-1 AGI, and 8 health, you can do that too. If you want a more balanced all around fighter, hey, those exist too. This game is about way more than just roll a bunch of dice and hit stuff. D&D exists for that.

Secondly, if you are flying any version of a tie and a y wing gets behind you, you are doing it wrong. Same can be said for a majority of rebel ships, except maybe an A wing. This is how the actual star wars universe is brought to life in the game. If all the ships were the same, the game would be boring.

And lastly, this game is about diversity and ability, that is what makes it great. It is a living game that is constantly evolving, and that isn't just in the waves being released, but how people are using old and new upgrades to pull off crazy combos and lists. There is no kill all list. You have to adapt based on what you have versus what you are going against. If you can't do that, you will lose. You can run Heaver's worlds list all day, but if you don't know how to run it, you will lose. There is no secret formula here, you just have to be better than the other guy at flying the list you brought.

Red dice and accuracy will never be an issue if you fly in a way that won't let the other guy shoot.