It maybe like ECM upgrade. Chimps turns a die into a hit. Maybe ECM turns a hit to a blank/eye. Seems like a direction they may go.

Like Sensor Jammer? They don't seem to repeat the same mechanics.

Is it going to be a counter to Scouts, or a counter to ordnance, like "flares" or something? Because I'd like to see ordnance become a thing and I'd hate for it to have very cheap hard counters the second it becomes viable.

Eh, if it's a hard counter that eats up a Missile slot like Flares probably would, that wouldn't be so bad.

Yes, make A-wings and TAPs get even more table time! I want this.

One of the cool things of being a Patreon supporter is hearing the Scum and Villainy Podcast early (you can sign up here).

In the interview you should be able to hear in a few days, Alex Davy says there is something coming in Wave 9 that will be a "direct hard counter to Jumpmasters". Which starts all of the whirly things going in my mind in what could be coming!

Man, I love this game and the forces behind it! What is coming in Wave 9?!?

Edit: Listened again, and his exact quote has been fixed from Contracted Scout to Jumpmasters.

Spoilers!

Seriously Alex is always fun. Also just wait till the holonet finds out about the news with Frank Brooks.

I like a one time use defensive card, like Flares (modification)

When defending, discard this card, and roll 2 defence dice. If one or more [evade] is rolled, cancel all dice results, and suffer one damage. You may modify these dice.

You still might need to burn a focus or evade token to make it work, which limits your offence. If you miss, you suffer ALL the damage.

Takes up the mod slot, and doesn't make interceptors any better.

What do you guys think?

Also just wait till the holonet finds out about the news with Frank Brooks.

Spill?

Given the typical length of FFGs development cycle, doesn't this mean they had a counter for Jumpmasters prepared before releasing the Jumpmasters?

TIE Avenger and Assault Gunboat at PS 4?

Eh, if it's a hard counter that eats up a Missile slot like Flares probably would, that wouldn't be so bad.

Yes, make A-wings and TAPs get even more table time! I want this.

Good use for the missile slot on an Advanced or Defender too.

Against a Fel player my opponent will just convert 3 blanks to an evade, or god roll on defense the one or two chances I have per game to block Fel and shoot him.

Well, then play brobots. If Fel is ever in your arc at range two or three (and he will be) he is in mortal danger. He uses tokens to avoid your first HLC shot, you fire again, he takes damage and/or immediately explodes.

It's not that glittercrack is a hard counter to Palp aces, it's that glittercrack is perfectly competitive with Palp aces and will come down to a combination of better piloting and better dice. Fel ain't god mode when you have HLC, two shots, a focus for both shots and a target lock for the second shot. Oh, and you can cancel one of his evade results so he can't be clever and just allow one damage through (I mean, unless you roll one damage and he rolls all blanks on the first hit, I guess).

Except against Brobots the Palp Aces player gets to do the Boost+Barrel Roll combo after you move. Yes, Glittercrack Brobots can vaporize an ace in one turn, but if you haven't downed the second one before he downs one IG, you've lost 9/10 times in my experience as a Brobots player.

It's not getting screwed over by, "soontir rolled triple evade trolololo", it's getting screwed over by the guaranteed damage mitigation he gets that turn average or even straight blank results into something that can just tank 3/3 and 4/4 hit shots reliably. Being able to convert 3 blanks into 3 evades, or 3 blanks and a focus into 4 is the very opposite of getting screwed by dice luck, that's just being doomed.

And the times you do successfully block and get a ship in range 1-2 of soontir? If he god rolls then your entire game is over. Once he isn't blocked he is invincible again next turn. If aF Fire Spray or TIE Fighter gets lucky max evade results on a crucial turn, there is always next turn to try again. Block a Soontir and hit him with a 4 hit homing missile at range 2? Triple evade naturally and Palpatine. Game over.

It's not getting screwed over by, "soontir rolled triple evade trolololo", it's getting screwed over by the guaranteed damage mitigation he gets that turn average or even straight blank results into something that can just tank 3/3 and 4/4 hit shots reliably. Being able to convert 3 blanks into 3 evades, or 3 blanks and a focus into 4 is the very opposite of getting screwed by dice luck, that's just being doomed.

And the times you do successfully block and get a ship in range 1-2 of soontir? If he god rolls then your entire game is over. Once he isn't blocked he is invincible again next turn. If aF Fire Spray or TIE Fighter gets lucky max evade results on a crucial turn, there is always next turn to try again. Block a Soontir and hit him with a 4 hit homing missile at range 2? Triple evade naturally and Palpatine. Game over.

You are so biased against imperials that it starts to be funny.

I'd normally say that you should try out imperials for a while, to realize that the grass is not as green as you see, but it will be an exercise of futility.

Thus, I'd simply say: May you encounter Palp+Soontir in every match you play from now on, and implode in a quasar of rage and hatred.

I won a Store Championship with a 59 point Boba and 38 point Vader. I placed second* at another with 5 Alpha Squadrons with 5 Autothrusters.

I play Imperials, I just hate Soontir.

I like your curse on me though, exquisitely worded.

*I don't really count this one because 2 of the top 4 dropped, but there you go.

Except against Brobots the Palp Aces player gets to do the Boost+Barrel Roll combo after you move. Yes, Glittercrack Brobots can vaporize an ace in one turn, but if you haven't downed the second one before he downs one IG, you've lost 9/10 times in my experience as a Brobots player.

Sure, it's true they can arc dodge after you move. This also means you can block them, particularly with that large base and boost. Again, I'm not suggesting it's an easy match or an auto-win, just that it's doable. Like, I would never have made it to the top 8 at Hoth with my brobots, but I have beaten Palp aces flown by someone who did make it to the top 8 with that very same list.

If you want a list that's closer to a brobot hard counter, look at torpedomasters. Still not sure what to do that gives me a decent shot at beating them.

A good meta can always be better.

The best meta would be this one, sans Palp Aces. That's the real NPE power list IMO.

Given the typical length of FFGs development cycle, doesn't this mean they had a counter for Jumpmasters prepared before releasing the Jumpmasters?

I'm wondering if it's something that was intended to help ships that couldn't take autothrusters against tlt, that also now works against torpedoes. Perhaps a system or mod that adds an evade result when defending against a secondary weapon.

Except against Brobots the Palp Aces player gets to do the Boost+Barrel Roll combo after you move. Yes, Glittercrack Brobots can vaporize an ace in one turn, but if you haven't downed the second one before he downs one IG, you've lost 9/10 times in my experience as a Brobots player.

Sure, it's true they can arc dodge after you move. This also means you can block them, particularly with that large base and boost. Again, I'm not suggesting it's an easy match or an auto-win, just that it's doable. Like, I would never have made it to the top 8 at Hoth with my brobots, but I have beaten Palp aces flown by someone who did make it to the top 8 with that very same list.

If you want a list that's closer to a brobot hard counter, look at torpedomasters. Still not sure what to do that gives me a decent shot at beating them.

Yes, you can block with one of the bots and shoot with the other. My issues start to appear when you lose one of your bots. Even if all the opponent has left is a 1 hp Vader/Soontir, it's still almost impossible to win in that situation.

How about, "you may not play more than 2 large ships in a 100 point game"

that sounds incredibly dumb, actually

you can't go around with situational, direct hard counters to very specific builds without releasing incredibly situational upgrades with very little overall utility. Do too much of that and you risk turning the game into match-up rng rather than an actual game about maneuvers

Assumes that this direct hard counter has limited value otherwise. Unjustified.

justified

direct hard-counter implies the upgrade was designed to limit the opposing build in some manner

I am not sure what upgrade you could make to counter scouts, whose strength lies in their (just recently viable) ordnance, which is kind of unique atm. It sure as **** isn't their plinky PWTs, for which we already have thrusters

I'm expecting autothrusters for secondary weapons including cannons. This would also directly nerf TLT. All this means is you shouldn't spam 3 scouts with ordnance. You need to diversify your list.

hell no, way too situational

thrusters at least work globally with the "Beyond range 2" trigger, the hypothetical upgrade is just a match-up skew

not to mention TLTs don't need counters when you can ordnance boat your way through them

secondly, if you can't spam you're already losing diversity. As many forms of lists as possible should be viable at any given them, though given you only ever see 1 interceptor (soontir) 1 advance (vader) 1 FO (Omega L) 1 TAPs (Inquisitor) etc. it may be beyond FFG at this point. Personally prefer having a bumpmaster in there.

the only way to create a general counter is some kind of burst defensive buff, which will probably be abused to hell and back on high mobility, defensive ships

only acceptable one I can imagine is an Action: discard on use immunity for a turn w/weapon's disabled

Actually one of the rare cases where we partially agree. Nerfing ordnance by direct counter just after it finally gets useable would be pretty dumb. I would just rather like to have ships commit a bit more to said ordnance to be effective. In other words Jumpys are not only efficient for their ordnance. They are also a turret ship (okay small turret...) with a huge statline for their price! And they are spammable for that reason. If you could not get 3 for this huge discount price with literally everything you need to oneshot most stuff that exists in X-Wing with their alpha, while being almost guaranteed to not lose a ship before said alpha happens, then it would be another story.

I think it's the second agility point, they have over a K-Wing and Punisher is what makes every attempt to counter them luck-based. If you score 12 hits in a turn on a K or a Punisher, it's gone. On a Scout its still a gamble! And if they get the alpha off before losing one, nearly any list loses the matchup because afterwards their survivors don't face enough damage to get cleaned up most of the time!

The other huge advantage is the EPT which makes the Alpha nigh unavoidable due to Deadeye. The Droid slot is also important for R4s which make any ordnance shot basically guaranteed 4 hits.

So having a K or Punisher with such overwhelming firepower, even 3 of them would be manageable, but not the Scouts that get them off turn 1 of the engagement with little hope of killing one with your higher PS ships.

This is the part where i still don't agree. Ordnance doing a lot of damage is fine, but Jumpmasters are killing diversity mot creating it! I was on a small tournament yesterday where no one played U-Boats. What basically happened is that the very diverse lists i faced wiped the floor with my Palpmobile list.

I conclude: Jumpys are suppressing most Palpmobile counters, like Autoblaster Ghosts or other ace lists.

Dear PGS... I think that U-Boats are the reason why Palpmobile does so exceedingly well these days (watched a tournament with Heaver in the night where 4/4 lists were imperial aces in the semis, and 3/4 were Palpmobile lists! Final was Palp vs Palp!)

So saying U-Boats create diversity is wrong. They just create tournaments where they eliminate anybidy that is not a Palpmobile and then get whacked by Palpmobile if they make the cut.

If you want PalpAces gone you need to see U-Boats gone first!

A good meta can always be better.

The best meta would be this one, sans Palp Aces. That's the real NPE power list IMO.

the funny thing is, its not like palp aces changed that much from before wave 8 some people use some wave 8 stuff others dont. Its just that the jump masters not are obliterating their primary competition so now everyone is afraid to bring the lists that the aces are afraid of.

Palp Aces are to uboats what Fat Han was to pre-nerf Whisper. So Palp Aces arent really the issue.

A good meta can always be better.

The best meta would be this one, sans Palp Aces. That's the real NPE power list IMO.

the funny thing is, its not like palp aces changed that much from before wave 8 some people use some wave 8 stuff others dont. Its just that the jump masters not are obliterating their primary competition so now everyone is afraid to bring the lists that the aces are afraid of.

Exactly this. Palp Aces itself got more diverse because they don't need to fear to get out-PSed that much anymore. So we see Carnor, Inquisitor, Omega Leader and even Procket Valen Rudor a lot more. All of them out-PS U-Boats and since Poe, Miranda, Corran and all the rest are gone, you only have to worry about not losing against enemy Palpmobiles, where Wampa And variations of the shuttle come in.

But that is not what makes a diverse meta!

Jamming and decoy beam for Imperials? Flares for Rebels?

There is still a lot of stuff which wasn't used.

In regards to the "hard counter", I agree with the theory that it probably will have to do with the Mag-pulse warheads that the Tie/sf is supposedly equipped with (and by extension, perhaps some form of a Magnepulse bomb using the same mechanics).

We know they have the Scurrg bomber in Armada and the Tie/sf is highly probable given it was one of the few new ships from the new movie, so there are two candidates to introduce such weapons...

My direct counter to the 3 contracted scouts is the following :

4 x Gamma Squadron with extra munitions, plasma torpedoes, seismic charges, and guidance chips. The higher pilot skill works in my favor, and I can out ordance joust the scout. After doing damage with the plasma once I drop seismic if they decide to sloop or go behind me to get some more free damage. Worked amazingly well.

crack swarm seems to be doing very well as is

there's also the lost art of blocking

arc and action dependent ships don't enjoy being blocked, especially when they're that fat

playing with scouts, you come to appreciate also how badly any ace (not just palp aces) can ruin them if not accounted for. Played a league game v an immaculately painted Star Wolf squadron that seemed like a done deal

3 interceptors? Fel's Wrath!? What could possibly go wrong?

Turns out not much, especially after 4-lom Plasma torps nuked soontir out of existence (no evade for you!) without even needing manaroo's feedback array

Fel's Wrath dies soonafter, making no use out of his ability (surprise surprise) until all we're left with is this *******

Predator Thurr

3 hull, only focus + thrusters

this little bastard, with a bit of grit and some great flying, single handedly murdered manaroo and took what should've been an easy 100-0 to a 34 point MOV gain

I shudder to think of me losing to a list with Fel's freaking Wrath, but had the first engagement not been perfect that's probably what would've happened. If that had been Fel leftover, it probably would've been game over for me

jumpies are new, utterly unique (Dat dial) and, as of yet, still poorly understood by the majority of players. This apparent hard counter better be an exaggeration, imo, because they can already be outplayed (and, going by recent regional results, they are)