The Ghost. Is freaking annoying. Overpowered Rebel plot armor.

How's that Decimator going for you? Or perhaps Soontir Fel?

At first I decided to collect Rebels - personally I prefer to play small fighters aces lists, unfortunately Wave 8 killed those types of lists for Rebels. Fortunately Empire provides plenty of meta viable small ship aces so I switched sides.

P.S. Also, am I the only one who hates Ghost aesthetics? I bought this ships for cards but I hate it with a passion and played with it only once.

Nah, you're not alone in that. I think it's way too big and not a very nice ship in aesthetic terms, although it does have a certain lancaster-bomber thing going for it.

The Ghost. Is freaking annoying. Overpowered Rebel plot armor.

How's that Decimator going for you? Or perhaps Soontir Fel?

Depends on how smug your post is meant to be: if totally smug, I'd say that you haven't destroyed enough decimators. Nor has anyone in your meta figured out ghosts. Then again. I could point out that the decimator gains the turret but pays 5 points for it but does not have the sensor slot nor the turret options while only losing 1 crew. It also gains a 4th attack dice which is crucial to burning things down fast and also has 2 arcs for all sorts of special madness.

Have you played 2 decimators before? I have. It's not good. Played 2 ghosts? It's much better.

I'm also rather well trained in Soontir Vader palp. Does okay but dies to blocking. Unless you're paragoomba slayer. It's his unslayable goomba.

So. How's that decimator doing for you? And that interceptor?

Also I said it's annoying. As in stupid. Annoying. Irritating. Ugly looking. Undercosted to the decimator.

An annoying large based rebel ship. And I got lots of precedent for hating those. (Cough. Wave 5).

Oh. Best thing about the scouts though is that it makes PS 4 race relevant again. And that's amazing.

Ghost: I actually quite like this one. It’s a different approach to “big ship with turret” from the others and can be run in several unique ways. Shame about that useless stand…

The TAP is pretty good. The generics and Rudor are actually okay but all of them are completely overshadowed by The Inquisitor. Letting him turn off Autothrusters while having access to them himself might have been a little bit much. It’s possible the only reason people aren’t railing against him is that the wave also brought something worse.

The G1-A seems to unfortunately be DoA as expected. Gets outmaneuvered and murdered by both Scouts and Imperial Aces, and since they make up a disproportionate part of the meta at the moment the G1-A has very little going for it.

As for the JM5K, for the most part I like it. The uniques have interesting abilities, can be built multiple ways effectively, and seem well costed. No complaints at all for any of them.

But then we get to the thing that ruins the whole wave: that bloody Contracted Scout. I never thought I would dislike a ship more than the TLT Y-wing, but here it is. I will give them some credit for making PS4+ more relevant again, but it honestly wasn't worth it. This thing is a lazy design that has spawned a lazy list which has completely overshadowed the promised ordnance fix and summarily dismissed an unacceptable number of previously playable ships from the game. It should never, ever have been given an EPT, and the fact that FFG are even thinking about introducing a hard-counter to them is a damning indication of how badly they messed up here.

Overall, I would have called the wave a success if weren’t for that damned Scout. As-is, I feel the game has regressed to a state only a little bit better than it was back in Wave 5.

Oh. Best thing about the scouts though is that it makes PS 4 race relevant again. And that's amazing.

Yeah, this is my favourite part about the current meta - the Scouts being so common have made 'bid for all the PS forever' a much less useful tactic, so people are skipping VI and high PS in favour of lower PS pilots with more utility, and of more interesting EPTs. And we're seeing a lot more of the focus-blockers (carnors, weses, palobs) which is also interesting to play with.

Veterans is only going to improve that I think, with Ryad being awesomesauce, both ships getting a mid-PS elite generic, and the highest PS in the ships in the set being 8, and all the PS8s in the set wanting to get utility rather than more PS.

And FFG seem to have learned the lesson that there should be a balance between low PSes with strong abilities and high PSes with weaker abilities, rather than throwing them all in together like with Soontir and Vader.

I'm also rather well trained in Soontir Vader palp. Does okay but dies to blocking.

Blocking is also one of the key approaches to dealing with the Contracted Scout - if they're blocked they don't get a focus token, and are down to an underwhelming unmodified 2 dice turret. I've found their large base not too hard to block, even with their access to a white s-loop.

Wave 8 would have been fine if the designers hadn't priced the scout at 25 points. What on earth were they thinking?! It should have been 25 without an EPT or 27 with. It feels like a sloppy oversight on the designers part.

This isn't comparable to TLT spam as TLTs were so easily beaten. JM5Ks are far more dominant, winning regionals, open series etc. I have hopes that imperial veterans will reign them in somewhat, allowing for a more diverse meta once again.

Impossible to prove though.

Personally I think 27/28 with Ept would have been fine, the scout would still be very viable and pure scout lists would have less room to equip upgrades.

The simple fix would be to just make the scout unique as others suggested, but as the designers have said the already introduced a hard counter in wave 9 (which sounds like bad design to me).

Now before some troll tells me to just play better : I have beaten triple jumps more than I lost, but they push many ships/lists out of the meta right now. The number of viable list archetypes is way down from wave 7. And that's not very good for the game.

Wave 8 would have been fine if the designers hadn't priced the scout at 25 points. What on earth were they thinking?! It should have been 25 without an EPT or 27 with. It feels like a sloppy oversight on the designers part.

This isn't comparable to TLT spam as TLTs were so easily beaten. JM5Ks are far more dominant, winning regionals, open series etc. I have hopes that imperial veterans will reign them in somewhat, allowing for a more diverse meta once again.

There was a rumor around here that the last version of the scout that playtesters saw was indeed 27pts and no ept.

Impossible to prove though.

Personally I think 27/28 with Ept would have been fine, the scout would still be very viable and pure scout lists would have less room to equip upgrades.

The simple fix would be to just make the scout unique as others suggested, but as the designers have said the already introduced a hard counter in wave 9 (which sounds like bad design to me).

Agreed on both counts. I'd far prefer them to make a simple errata than rock/paper/scissors it. Scouts at 27 points or making the scout unique (or making Deadeye discard-on-use) would all make the scout less dominant but still eminently viable. The thing that makes them really strong is being able to fit three of them with 2 4-die torpedoes and enough mods to average 75 to 90% hits, all into one list.

Thoguh my suspicion is that as things settle down, we'll actually collectively figure out that two fully loaded scouts and a third support ship (e.g. 4LOM, a pair of blocker zs, or a bumpmaster) is actually overall more reliable, and less easy to counter.

And also that we'll see more scouts as part of the scum toolbox, rather than 3 identical or near-identical ships.

Thoguh my suspicion is that as things settle down, we'll actually collectively figure out that two fully loaded scouts and a third support ship (e.g. 4LOM, a pair of blocker zs, or a bumpmaster) is actually overall more reliable, and less easy to counter.

And also that we'll see more scouts as part of the scum toolbox, rather than 3 identical or near-identical ships.

Agreed, I think the triple torpedo Contracted Scout list will probably go the way of the 4 TLT Y-Wing list before much longer. Swapping one out for something else (and Scum have some good options in the 30-33 point range) gives you a lot more versatility, and can help muddy your opponent's targeting priorities.

Likewise, I'm looking forward to seeing the Scout as a handy way of dropping in 33 points of firepower in other lists.

I agree that Jumpmaster was made to cheap, but to make it unique, means you just taken people money, that bough 3 of them and now make them not viable? Sounds like GW games to me then

If we will see hard counter to them in Wave9 ok, but again, like a lot mentioned here, starts to sound like GW games.

I think what we need, if more viable options for rebels and other factions of course.

I play Rebel mainly and was fine with them till 3xJumpmaster showed up, there are not much lists that can consistently go vs them. I was fine with Imperial Aces and such.

But oh well, meta evolves, after some times Jumpmasters will get counter, like TLT did

The Ghost is very fun ship to play, what he lacks, is saving MOV in tournaments, but I like the ship in general and had good success with it.

I think the Contracted Scout is too cheap. Running 3 identical copies of a ship shouldn't be quite so obviously rewarding. I'd prefer them to come in something like 28 pts, so you can still happily run 2 but have to make a compromise somewhere along the way for that 3rd ship.

HOWEVER, while people spend all the time focussing on the cost or EPT slot of the Contracted Scout I think the real fix should have come in the dial, which is far too good... perhaps the best dial in the game. In the past we've seen big cheap ships (Lambda, Slaver) but they've been limited by a weak dial - if you gave either of those ships the Jumpmaster dial you'd almost certainly be facing 3x Lambda and 3x Slaver lists.

I also think the TAP has a problem with that hard green 1, which is too good. I feel with that, and the improved slooping Falcon coming in Heroes, there's a really frustrating trend in overpowering the maneuver dials of new ships. That's where the problem lies, because a strong maneuver dial is very difficult to cost for correctly and once it's done it's a difficult thing to undo, and basically requires every later ship steps up to that level or beyond. That's where I think we feel the power creep most obviously... even the TIE Fighter, the dial star of Wave I, is limited when you put it next to something like a TIE/fo that bring the sloops AND the hard green 2. The 3 extra points for a /FO covers the extra shield nicely and the improved dial is where the power creep is.

Huh. I noticed the improved dials, but since we always think in jousting values its hard to remember that.

Yeah. I really want to see more artistic, tougher to use dials like the Lambda. The Lambda's dial is a work of art. Literally. Tough, uncompromising, and yet so so so so so gooood.

My opponents tend to tell me: my soontir flying is pretty bad/normal/not inspiring. My shuttle is a force of nature.

It should never, ever have been given an EPT, and the fact that FFG are even thinking about introducing a hard-counter to them is a damning indication of how badly they messed up here.

The ideal meta would be wave 8 without Palp Aces. Tired of having to face invincible ships that I have to go all-in against just for them to remain unscathed all game as I progressively lose ships. Palp Aces ruins the game much more than U-Boats.

I love spike damage and I like that it is viable, although I get why people wouldn't (they way it is implemented now).

I agree that Jumpmaster was made to cheap, but to make it unique, means you just taken people money, that bough 3 of them and now make them not viable? Sounds like GW games to me then

If we will see hard counter to them in Wave9 ok, but again, like a lot mentioned here, starts to sound like GW games.

I think what we need, if more viable options for rebels and other factions of course.

I play Rebel mainly and was fine with them till 3xJumpmaster showed up, there are not much lists that can consistently go vs them. I was fine with Imperial Aces and such.

But oh well, meta evolves, after some times Jumpmasters will get counter, like TLT did

The Ghost is very fun ship to play, what he lacks, is saving MOV in tournaments, but I like the ship in general and had good success with it.

Well most people just swap out one of the scouts for a bumpmaster so it's still a 3scout list, i dont think that solves the issue of scouts being too cheap for what they do.

The designers are on record saying the scout is undercosted(S&V or Nova podcast,i dont rememebr) so it's not like they didnt know that this could happen. Sometimes i wonder if these decisions are consciously made just to boost sales, i know a lot of people who bought three jumpmaster at 20+$ each just for this list. I sincerely hope that's not the case here.

I think they made a deliberate decision to skirt really close to the edge with the Contracted Scout in order to try and force Scum to be played as a faction.

As I understand it they had the exact Jumpmaster build during playtesting but it was held in check by Autoceptors, which will have been a big thing at the time playtesting was happening. The jumps have been released into a meta just as Autoceptors have taken a bit of a back seat so I think they're being far more dominant than was expected when they were signed off.

I agree that Jumpmaster was made to cheap, but to make it unique, means you just taken people money, that bough 3 of them and now make them not viable? Sounds like GW games to me then

If we will see hard counter to them in Wave9 ok, but again, like a lot mentioned here, starts to sound like GW games.

I think what we need, if more viable options for rebels and other factions of course.

I play Rebel mainly and was fine with them till 3xJumpmaster showed up, there are not much lists that can consistently go vs them. I was fine with Imperial Aces and such.

But oh well, meta evolves, after some times Jumpmasters will get counter, like TLT did

The Ghost is very fun ship to play, what he lacks, is saving MOV in tournaments, but I like the ship in general and had good success with it.

Nah, you could still, I think, fit in Manaroo/Tel/Scout with the scout as a bumpmaster. And I suspect it would be pretty solid.

I think they made a deliberate decision to skirt really close to the edge with the Contracted Scout in order to try and force Scum to be played as a faction.

As I understand it they had the exact Jumpmaster build during playtesting but it was held in check by Autoceptors, which will have been a big thing at the time playtesting was happening. The jumps have been released into a meta just as Autoceptors have taken a bit of a back seat so I think they're being far more dominant than was expected when they were signed off.

I can well believe this. Since Scouts dropps my habiltual trip aces list with OL, Vader and something has turned into OL, Carnor and something, probably Soontir in the end although Lone Wolf or Juke Vader is something I'm eager to trial.

Having two or three ships which can weather a single 4-hit shot unharmed at range three then close to range one and stay there is huge.

OL just laughs it off as long as he has a lock, which he will - so what if you have Deadeye and Agromech and Chimps oh my, I block frigging ALL of it and take you back to your average of two hits from naked dice.

Soontir... well, we all know how Soontir can ignore 4-hit attacks til the cows come home as long as he's out of arc or at r3, and not blocked.

Carnor is obvious, he doesn aim to take a r3 shot, he just aims to close , without any care for his health, and block them from shooting long enough to kill them with unfired torps.

It's a solid list against JMs, and not awful generally.

Need more practice with it though.

The UK meta does seem light on swarms, too, which are a very strong JM counter. When you have 6 or 8 TIEs, and each one takes two torps to kill on average, annd the whole swarm probably kills a JM in its first round of shooting...

I'm actually in the process of buying 3 Jumpmasters (I have 2, and will likely get the third after next payday). I've played with the two that I have, as I loved running my beefed up Dengar (easily my favorite scum ship/pilot now), so I figured I'd try the "cheese" everyone is talking about. I've run 2 Jumpmasters (U-boat variants, of course) aided by either Kavil with a Blaster Turret or 4-LOM with upgrades. Both lists have done...okay. I played a casual game against a guy in my local group who used N'dru Suhlak with Lone Wolf and such, with Kavil and a TLT and Zuckuss. That list game me a hard time. Now, I'm no bad player, and I made a mistake here and there getting used to running the list, but it doesn't appear to be as powerful as people say. I ended up only winning that game with a single Jumpmaster left with 1 Hull point. Then I played against some different people and various builds, and while I won, I got wrecked in the process. And this was against non-tourney level lists.

As far as the other ships go, lets look at the TAP. The Inquisitor is obviously good, and is ridiculously fun in my opinion. The title is a bit too cheap for what it does in my opinion, and the TAP makes the old TIE Advanced obsolete to an extent, but otherwise it's fine. Valen Rudor is also a lot of fun if you run him right. I even came up with a nerdy idea of running 5 generics with Autothrusters and the Title, because I think it would be hilarious.

Mist Hunter...The issue I have with this ship is the agility. It's a heavy fighter with 1 Agility, in a meta where people spam TLTs. It's going to die. Granted, I still love it. Most people in my meta use Zuckuss, but I prefer 4-LOM with PTL and some other shinies. Overall fun ship, but I wouldn't consider it competitive.

Ghost. Well, it's a cool model. And if you complain the Ghost is OP, well, shoot at it. It'll die quickly. I've only had success with it in super casual games (trying every pilot in a variety of ways), and even then it usually dies. I think it's too expensive for what it does, and the lack of anything but a forward arc (unless you spend another ship's worth of points) is rough. I love the mechanics of it, though. The crew are all fun. (Side note, it peeves me that if you bring the Phantom, you can only have a total of 5 of the Rebel members. Ghost pilot + 2 Crew + Phantom Pilot + 1 crew. Like, whaaaaat)

So, in conclusion:

Jumpmaster: A+ Fun ship, good pilots, and then of course the obvious cheap generic (which I think is a tad over-rated).

TAP: A- Great ship, fun rules, fun pilots, good upgrade choices, but my peeve is the TIE Advanced is now somewhat obsolete.

Mist Hunter: B- Very fun ship, but not really competitive. I personally hate the TLT, so releasing new ships that are TLT bait bugs me.

Ghost: C Too expensive unless you run Brothal Rebels, and even then it's not impressive. The Decimator does better, imo. Another ship that's bait to TLTs, but it super fun in casual play.

The only piece of wave 8 I've played with much is Ghost + Phantom, and I personally like them. They give some interesting options, but fall easily to numerous types of opponent if not played well. One mistake can cost the match. 0 agility seems to balance the strengths of the Ghost pretty well, in my opinion. Ordnance and swarms both can be very troublesome, to say nothing of ordnance swarms.

It's interesting to hear the unvarnished and uninterrupted thoughts of a bright, talented, friend who is a known Imperial fanboy. Where was all this angst when Imp Aces have continued to be a dominant meta presence for how long now? What about that emperor card which costs 40% of its value? Let's face it Scum has been the red headed stepchild of X-Wing since it was introduced with only one truly competitive list (BroBots). Are the Scouts undercosted, absolutely. Davey has said as much. They over corrected for the lower PS Rebel PWTs which never see tables. Is it a total disaster that Scum now has a meta-dominant list like Imps have had since Swarm->Phantom->Deci-Aces->Aces->Palp Aces? I guess Imps just aren't satisfied sharing the limelight.

I'm not saying Wave 8 USA resounding success simply that it's level of success is a matter of faction specific perspective. The Ghost stand is indeed atrocious. Thats the worst part of the wave by far. I deeply agree with a previous poster that dials are the thing which is over balancing the newer ships. All the new dials are just so good. I would imagine when the KR new shuttle comes to X-Wing jaws will drop at the dial when comparing the 2 shuttles. TB Is thing of beauty. It's does no native damage yet it is a threat to any non zero AG ship. It can also be used effectively by all the factions. Anything that makes Aces players squirm is okay in my book.

BB I'm going to have to buy a second Ghost just so I can fly 2 in our next match.

Wave 8 would have been fine if the designers hadn't priced the scout at 25 points. What on earth were they thinking?! It should have been 25 without an EPT or 27 with. It feels like a sloppy oversight on the designers part.

This isn't comparable to TLT spam as TLTs were so easily beaten. JM5Ks are far more dominant, winning regionals, open series etc. I have hopes that imperial veterans will reign them in somewhat, allowing for a more diverse meta once again.

There was a rumor around here that the last version of the scout that playtesters saw was indeed 27pts and no ept.

Impossible to prove though.

Personally I think 27/28 with Ept would have been fine, the scout would still be very viable and pure scout lists would have less room to equip upgrades.

The simple fix would be to just make the scout unique as others suggested, but as the designers have said the already introduced a hard counter in wave 9 (which sounds like bad design to me).

Agreed on both counts. I'd far prefer them to make a simple errata than rock/paper/scissors it. Scouts at 27 points or making the scout unique (or making Deadeye discard-on-use) would all make the scout less dominant but still eminently viable. The thing that makes them really strong is being able to fit three of them with 2 4-die torpedoes and enough mods to average 75 to 90% hits, all into one list.

Thoguh my suspicion is that as things settle down, we'll actually collectively figure out that two fully loaded scouts and a third support ship (e.g. 4LOM, a pair of blocker zs, or a bumpmaster) is actually overall more reliable, and less easy to counter.

And also that we'll see more scouts as part of the scum toolbox, rather than 3 identical or near-identical ships.

Our local meta pretty much completely skipped triple scouts. The third ship we see is Slaver with Dengar, Zuckuss and 4-LOM. This ship eats Aces for breakfast. And the 2 Scout with Slaver list is far better and better against more builds than 3 scouts IME.

Wave 8 has probably been the best (and biggest Wave so far).

TIE/fo - Several useful pilots. Omega Leader and Juke see a lot of play.

T-70 X-Wing - Ello Esty and Red Ace both have solid abilities and when the meta shifts again will probably both see more play in the future. IA is a great upgrade.

G-1A - Fantastic and cheap Scum crew upgrades. Two very solid named pilots. The ship is good overall but weak in the current meta.

TAP - The Inquistor immediately hit tables and has stayed on them. The other pilots aren't doing as well but seem to be finding their niches.

VX100 + Assault Shuttle - Another source of great Rebel crew. The Shuttle isn't seeing as much play as I thought it would but the VX100 has been more flexible and varied than I expected.

Jumpmaster 5000 - It might be a little undercosted but I think FFG got it right. They put out a ship that has huge potentials for customization. It's flexible and can fill a number of roles in Scum squads.

I don't think there are any stinkers in the bunch. There may be some that don't fare as well as the others against the current meta but there's no Scyk or TIE Advanced in the bunch. There's a few things that have impacted the meta but nothing near the amount that the Phantom did.

The (imho) winners of the Wave:

Pilots:

Omega Leader

Lothal Scout, Chopper.

Contracted Scout

The Inquisitor

Red Ace

Upgrades:

Ezra Crew

Juke

Hera Crew

Kanan Crew

Guidance Chips

TIE/v1

4-LOM Crew

Boba Fett Crew

Adaptability

Zuckuss Crew

Tractor Beam,

The promised ones, that sort of failed (for now):

XX-23 S-Thread Tracers, Electronic Baffle, Targeting Astromech, Zeta Leader

The losers of the wave:

All the other pilots.

Seriously, Rudor is a lot of fun, especially with PRockets, but he is utterly daft compared to the Inquisitor.

The same goes for the Sienar and Baron.

Just a couple notes about Zeta Leader. I think he's a fantastic ship for the points (21-25). He was just part of the regionals winning list in California. The only reason he probably doesn't see more play specifically is because of Omega Leader in that point range and he's also behind about 7-8 other ships in a category the Imperials excel in (and frankly, don't need more of unless their abilities add synergy to something else).