To a certain extent, I'd say that Palp is at least 75% responsible for Imp Aces being a competitive threat. Sure the Aces are hot to start with, but Palp let's them survive enough to win. Without Palp, I would totally think that Aces would go away again too.

I disagree; triple aces is absolutely a threat in itself - rather than investing extra points to shore up your two aces, you just bring a third. The higher variance is balanced out a tiny bit by the fact that all three of your ships are (hopefully) perfectly potent endgame threats; but over a longer series of games I suspect we're back to the original issue where you'll lose That One Game for shoddy dice - and if that's at worlds instead of a practice round, you could be in real trouble.

Don't see the problem. Shoot the shuttle kill it in 1 combined volley in 1 round. If a Y wing a hawk and a starviper can kill it in a single round can't be to hard

The other thing to remember is that the higher the points go, the less value Palpatine has. In Epic or Cinematic play he's a barely useful upgrade (for his price). Even at 150 points he loses a lot of potency.

I disagree. If you can use Palpatine to push that one last damage through in an epic match, it helps a great deal. In that format there isn't a lot of safe space to hide, so you have to take enemy ships off the board. Likewise, he can prevent the final damage, keeping one of your own ships on the board. Sure, the Emperor influences a smaller proportion of the dice, but he also costs a smaller proportion of your squad total.

Don't see the problem. Shoot the shuttle kill it in 1 combined volley in 1 round. If a Y wing a hawk and a starviper can kill it in a single round can't be to hard

The problem with that plan, is that while you're making for the shuttle the two Aces slide onto your flank and rip it apart. I'd almost always happily trade my worst ship for one of your best.

You shouldn't be keeping the shuttle in the corner- It's quite capable of contributing offensively.

NOBODY puts the chalky interstellar manatee baby in the corner!!!

The easiest palp counter is to shoot the same ship more than once a turn.

To a certain extent, I'd say that Palp is at least 75% responsible for Imp Aces being a competitive threat. Sure the Aces are hot to start with, but Palp let's them survive enough to win. Without Palp, I would totally think that Aces would go away again too.

I disagree; triple aces is absolutely a threat in itself - rather than investing extra points to shore up your two aces, you just bring a third. The higher variance is balanced out a tiny bit by the fact that all three of your ships are (hopefully) perfectly potent endgame threats; but over a longer series of games I suspect we're back to the original issue where you'll lose That One Game for shoddy dice - and if that's at worlds instead of a practice round, you could be in real trouble.

And that's precisely the point. Without that ability to mitigate that 'one bad game' Imp Aces isn't super competitive. I love flying triple aces as well, but the sheer amount of luck necessary keeps it from being truly competitve.

Fairly certain juggler's already pronounced him as being far more value than even c3po, who already was busted as hell

Personally rather just wish for more autodamage to be introduced into the game. Takes care of both Palo AND green dice

I don't like auto damage. It negates a good portion of the game mechanics. There are some ships such as A-Wings who need that ability to evade fire. When you start introducing numerous auto hits into a game where dealing damage is a matter of chance, I start feeling like the game is slipping downhill.

Of course I've been feeling like that a lot lately with X-Wing. Everything is just getting so crazy. Ships getting multiple attacks, auto hits, shield healing, able to evade till the end of time no matter how many times you shoot at them. 2 dice attacking ships pretty much useless.

I don't think palp is overpowered. Mostly because there isn't a great ship he fits into. The shuttle is only good for him because it's cheap, but it's a mediocre ship at best.

The main reason I don't find palp overpowered is because he is not a must take card, not even when you make an imperial aces list. I've seen many lists using 3 imperial aces that doesn't use palp do just as well.

The best thing about palp shuttle is it plays differently then any other list. No other list relys on a space cow type ship. It's all pwt, turrets, regen aces, swarms, or ace arc Dodgers.

None of the space bricks do well right now. I'd love to see the hounds tooth more often or other less maneuverable ships do well. They just don't right now.

You shouldn't be keeping the shuttle in the corner- It's quite capable of contributing offensively.

Of course, I know. I didn't mean it literally. I just meant that a third ace is much more fun, inspiring, and challenging to fly. The shuttle is well.. a shuttle. It doesn't inspire you to mix it up. Without Palp who would fly a shuttle?

People hated Fat Han because he could auto evade 2 damage each turn without blinking. This made standard 2 dice primaries really useless alone. Palp backed ace can auto evade 3-4 a turn. I understand the anger

Fairly certain juggler's already pronounced him as being far more value than even c3po, who already was busted as hell

Personally rather just wish for more autodamage to be introduced into the game. Takes care of both Palo AND green dice

I don't like auto damage. It negates a good portion of the game mechanics. There are some ships such as A-Wings who need that ability to evade fire. When you start introducing numerous auto hits into a game where dealing damage is a matter of chance, I start feeling like the game is slipping downhill.

Of course I've been feeling like that a lot lately with X-Wing. Everything is just getting so crazy. Ships getting multiple attacks, auto hits, shield healing, able to evade till the end of time no matter how many times you shoot at them. 2 dice attacking ships pretty much useless.

considering all auto-damage apart from Vadermator is positioning based (oicuun, bombs, range 1 feedback or range 1 auto-blasters), the only real response would be "fly better"

that's something every ship can do, regardless of how little health it has

auto-damage, done properly, emphasizes X-wing as a game about maneuvers and player interaction rather than just dice

To a certain extent, I'd say that Palp is at least 75% responsible for Imp Aces being a competitive threat. Sure the Aces are hot to start with, but Palp let's them survive enough to win. Without Palp, I would totally think that Aces would go away again too.

I disagree; triple aces is absolutely a threat in itself - rather than investing extra points to shore up your two aces, you just bring a third. The higher variance is balanced out a tiny bit by the fact that all three of your ships are (hopefully) perfectly potent endgame threats; but over a longer series of games I suspect we're back to the original issue where you'll lose That One Game for shoddy dice - and if that's at worlds instead of a practice round, you could be in real trouble.

This being verified by at least 3 regionals having Fel/Jax/Vader (to some extent, there were build variances) Making the Top 8 cut.

If you think this game is 60% dice, you blame your dice for your poor skill too much.

You shouldn't be keeping the shuttle in the corner- It's quite capable of contributing offensively.

Of course, I know. I didn't mean it literally. I just meant that a third ace is much more fun, inspiring, and challenging to fly. The shuttle is well.. a shuttle. It doesn't inspire you to mix it up. Without Palp who would fly a shuttle?

I remember when Fel/Whisper/Jendon was good.... even without palp, it still is. You could always drop Whisper or Fel for Vader now though if you wanted.

I have never had any trouble dealing with Palpatine. Seems like any other build.. Good and bad to be had in them all. I have my favorite builds but that's for sheer fun factor ..

Not for his price

I like to think of the whole negotiation that happened there. "How dare you ask me as crew on board of your ship! I'm your boss! I'm the ruler of the known universe! I want at least double what you gave Ysanne!"

If you think this game is 60% dice, you blame your dice for your poor skill too much.

can't blame dice if you run lots of autodamage

truly, there is no greater joy

If you think this game is 60% dice, you blame your dice for your poor skill too much.

Even though I don't rely on my dice, I do recognize that the game isn't quite 50/50 skill/luck. Yes, maneuver helps win games, but ultimately damage relies on the dice - how many evades, how many hits, etcetera. I can only imagine the frustration my opponents felt during the last tournament when Zeta Leader (in 6 games) took a total of 7 damage, was only destroyed once, and rolled 3 natural evades 6 times - twice against maxed hits.

It's why I like things such as Guidance Chips, Concussions, Palpatine, Vader (crew), and so on, because they reduce variance and promote more skilled play.

A game that's ALL skill is kind of boring, but having too much random chance with no way to reduce it is also boring.

To a certain extent, I'd say that Palp is at least 75% responsible for Imp Aces being a competitive threat. Sure the Aces are hot to start with, but Palp let's them survive enough to win. Without Palp, I would totally think that Aces would go away again too.

I disagree; triple aces is absolutely a threat in itself - rather than investing extra points to shore up your two aces, you just bring a third. The higher variance is balanced out a tiny bit by the fact that all three of your ships are (hopefully) perfectly potent endgame threats; but over a longer series of games I suspect we're back to the original issue where you'll lose That One Game for shoddy dice - and if that's at worlds instead of a practice round, you could be in real trouble.

This being verified by at least 3 regionals having Fel/Jax/Vader (to some extent, there were build variances) Making the Top 8 cut.

Compare that to five Regionals won by lists with Palp.

I disagree. If you can use Palpatine to push that one last damage through in an epic match, it helps a great deal. In that format there isn't a lot of safe space to hide, so you have to take enemy ships off the board. Likewise, he can prevent the final damage, keeping one of your own ships on the board. Sure, the Emperor influences a smaller proportion of the dice, but he also costs a smaller proportion of your squad total.

Granted, but the reason Palpatine is so valuable in 100 point snoozefests is that it's really hard to get aces in arc. And then when you do, Palpatine and Autothrusters and Evade tokens and Focus tokens mean it's practically impossible to force damage through.

This is much less the case in Epic or Cinematic play, where you're never going to only have one shot on that epic ship, and you're much more likely to have multiple arcs on that arc dodging ace.

If you think this game is 60% dice, you blame your dice for your poor skill too much.

Even though I don't rely on my dice, I do recognize that the game isn't quite 50/50 skill/luck. Yes, maneuver helps win games, but ultimately damage relies on the dice - how many evades, how many hits, etcetera. I can only imagine the frustration my opponents felt during the last tournament when Zeta Leader (in 6 games) took a total of 7 damage, was only destroyed once, and rolled 3 natural evades 6 times - twice against maxed hits.

You've got that exactly backwards. Dice can help win games, but maneuvers do the heavy lifting. I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen dice be the deciding factor in a game. You can always trace a loss back to a missed opportunity or mistake made at some point.

If you think this game is 60% dice, you blame your dice for your poor skill too much.

Even though I don't rely on my dice, I do recognize that the game isn't quite 50/50 skill/luck. Yes, maneuver helps win games, but ultimately damage relies on the dice - how many evades, how many hits, etcetera. I can only imagine the frustration my opponents felt during the last tournament when Zeta Leader (in 6 games) took a total of 7 damage, was only destroyed once, and rolled 3 natural evades 6 times - twice against maxed hits.

You've got that exactly backwards. Dice can help win games, but maneuvers do the heavy lifting. I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen dice be the deciding factor in a game. You can always trace a loss back to a missed opportunity or mistake made at some point.

Just yesterday I had a game at a tournament wherein my opponent's Dash put 4 hits into IG-88C 4 rounds running and took off 1 shield, while his Lothal Rebel took off only 1 more firing at range 1 against no defensive tokens before it died. A few rounds later Dash ran out of room to run and died with 88C only having just lost his last shield.

But none of that actually mattered. What really lost my opponent the game was the fact that he was simultaneously too cautious and too fixated on 88C. That range 1 attack the Rebel made was the only shot it fired all game, and Dash never got 88C in arc. The end result was that the Rebel was constantly out of range, Dash was constantly shooting into Autothrusters + Evade token, and 88B was free to slide onto the Rebel's tail and chew it up in complete safety.

Dice might put the nail in a coffin, but they are seldom ever the real reason why a game is won or lost.

I agree that games can be attributed to a wrong decision, but the swinginess of dice should not be underestimated, especially in a format like X-Wing's where one mistake OR one moment of bad luck can decide a game.

In most wargames I've played, there's a 'cushion' of sorts, where you can make a mistake and recover from it, or have one set of bad dice rolls that lose a unit and recover from it, but in X-Wing that recovery is nonexistent - it's intensely unforgiving.

Which is why Palpatine is so powerful, he's one of the few things that CAN give that moment of forgiveness. That's why Regen Rebels was so strong, because it could recover from a bad turn - just not one where it takes 8 damage in a single round!

The emperor is fine whiners.

Like others said its the ability to choose that 1 dice that is the ball breaker. With fragile aces and high damage output lists.

What needs to happen is Yoda.

The emperor is fine whiners.

Like others said its the ability to choose that 1 dice that is the ball breaker. With fragile aces and high damage output lists.

What needs to happen is Yoda.

The possibility of Master Luke as a Resistance card has tickled my fancy. maybe the opposite of Emperor Palpatine - you may change one opponent die result to any other result during the Compare Results step?

Sigh, meant to say Palpatine, not Vader. Think it might be time to go to sleep.