Let's see what happens once Imperial Vets comes out. Won't the Gamma Squadron Vet w/ Deadeye be even worse? Or possibly just different?

Just different.

I'd expect to see Gammas with LRS and Crack rather than Deadeye - what makes Deadeye so good is the combo with R4 Agromech.

Or Chimps and Jonus Shuttle.

Realistically though I'm expecting Vets to bring the Defenders, and a few Bomber Buddies. The actual offensive bombers I suspect will retain their current meta standings, more or less...

the scouts are good we know that but they aren't so good that people can't beat them, they are making people change lists or fly differently. I use a list that on paper has no chance vs uboats but i'm doing ok vs them

I think once Imperial Vets comes out we will see a lot less of the Imperial Aces or Palp Aces. Just having the Defender titles will be enough to make a lot of people switch. There will also be some Tie Bomber fans out there, as well.

Let's see what happens once Imperial Vets comes out. Won't the Gamma Squadron Vet w/ Deadeye be even worse? Or possibly just different?

Given how strong Gammas already are, they will be worse. Actually a lot worse. Haven't tested it, yet, but this squad has a great potential to reshape the meta:

Gamma Squadron Veteran (27) x 3

TIE Bomber (19), Deadeye (1), Extra Munitions (2), Homing Missiles (5), Guidance Chips (0)

Scimitar Squadron Pilot (19)

TIE Bomber (16), TIE Shuttle (0), Fleet Officer (3)

You block and denie Palpaces their Evades, you block and Focus+TL+GC stack U-Boats. The only downside over U-Boats is the loss of bulk. That might be a problem, but I doubt it can't be played around.

Let's see what happens once Imperial Vets comes out. Won't the Gamma Squadron Vet w/ Deadeye be even worse? Or possibly just different?

Of course they are cheaper but if you kit out the rest of your squad to support an Alpha strike (Systems/Fleet officer) you will still probably only have 3 of them.

One area where they do score over the Scout is their access to missiles rather than just torpedoes. Well modified Homing Missiles are better at killing aces than torpedoes.

I may be wrong but I don't think we will see GSVs spammed the way Scouts are. Even a list built around them will have to include other elements to float. Scouts can operate quite happily on their own.

EDIT - Although Admiral Deathrain's spam list looks like it might have legs.

Well, I have to say that I do NOT find the U-Boats to be overpowered. Are they good - Absolutely. They are not, however, anywhere near the super power of the pre-nerf Phantom. They are not as horrifying as the Autoblaster / Accuracy Corrector Ghost. I think they are fun to fly, but taking 3 similar ships (The One-Trick Pony) is not going to take you to high level competition.

Learn to fly against them...the Jumpmaster has an Achilles Heel.

Cheers

Let's see what happens once Imperial Vets comes out. Won't the Gamma Squadron Vet w/ Deadeye be even worse? Or possibly just different?

Given how strong Gammas already are, they will be worse. Actually a lot worse. Haven't tested it, yet, but this squad has a great potential to reshape the meta:

Gamma Squadron Veteran (27) x 3

TIE Bomber (19), Deadeye (1), Extra Munitions (2), Homing Missiles (5), Guidance Chips (0)

Scimitar Squadron Pilot (19)

TIE Bomber (16), TIE Shuttle (0), Fleet Officer (3)

You block and denie Palpaces their Evades, you block and Focus+TL+GC stack U-Boats. The only downside over U-Boats is the loss of bulk. That might be a problem, but I doubt it can't be played around.

Trouble with the bomberbuddy is that it only supports one ship fully, so your other two are out in the cold a bit.

I think Bomber Buddy will be seen a lot more in ace builds than mini-swarms.

He supports two ships and that support is only a nice bonus, not the core of the list. Actually I imagine in a lot of situations a well placed barrel roll to block opponents will be stronger than focus distribution.

I think Triple Scouts are much more of an issue in the casual play arena. They can be extremely difficult to tackle with a large amount of fun lists. In terms of powerlevel in casual, Scouts appear to be beyond pre-erf phatoms. They have counters and some pretty challenging in game positional counters as well, but many fun lists just cant take them on. Autothrusters and Arc dodging work pretty well, but the firepower output melts most small ships - and many games become, make a single mistake, and have a really difficult time recovering, if not impossible time.

They are absolutely meta warping - many competitive lists now hunt them, many lists that are good at hunting them are bad at dealing with imperial aces. A simmilar kind of RPS effect that we saw with phantoms.

Casually, The answer may be - "Don't fly uboats in casual" and "Talk to other players before hand" but - the real severity of the problem is one of game design philosophy. Ultimately, phantoms broke the ebb and flow of the game - make a choice, and live with it (old phantoms could basically change their mind at will)

Uboats have a pretty perfect storm of synergy going on centered mostly on the ept slot and deadeye. There's very little downside, good dial, good damage, good health, good board coverage, good dice modification, supreme arc coverage, ease of fire and a point bid over most generics (p.s.3) - especially for the points. the primary drawbacks are difficulty of flying 3 large ships, and action reliance. Quad TLT has drawbacks - little to no repositioning lower pilot skill, limited dials, range 1 safe zone, ships with weaker defense profiles. Fly quad TLT at Uboats, Uboats most likely win that battle - wiping a tlt off before it fires.

If your design goal is "every class of ship viable in tournament play" - they're probably ok as they are now. If your design goal is, nearly any 100 point list should be able to beat any other 100 point list - I think the triple scouts specifically break that. Phantoms broke that too.

Should they be nerfed? Maybe. I kindof hope so, but only because I'm tired of building fun to play lists, and then getting blown to bits by a triple scout missile barrage. Could I fly a counter? Yes, but - I'd rather play a fun game of skill vs a variety of lists. Have I beaten triple scouts? Yes, more than once, but usually with a list designed to do so (though not always).

Do I mind facing a single Uboat in a mixed list? No - that feels a bit more fair to fly against - Even Manaroo + Dengar torpedo boat + Stuff is a more reasonable battle than 3x scouts.

I think once Imperial Vets comes out we will see a lot less of the Imperial Aces or Palp Aces. Just having the Defender titles will be enough to make a lot of people switch. There will also be some Tie Bomber fans out there, as well.

I've been a Bomber fan for a long time, but local meta wasn't very permissive of their use (rough to run 4x Bombers around lots of Dash, Phantoms, Crack swarms, and Palp Aces). I'm looking forward to getting them back on the table with the Gammas and Scimitars with the titles.

We're using fixed to mean repair and neuter now?

Scouts haven't warped the meta nearly as hard as vi whisper did. They have answers. Whisper had 1.

Phantom had 2

VI PWT

Rebel captive xD

I don't mind the Jumpmaster being Scum's toolbox ship. The problem seems to be the issue of spamming 3 with the Deadeye/R4 interaction. Simply removing the EPT slot from the Generic would eliminate the problem but I realise this is extremely unlikely.

I'm not saying they won't keep being used. I'm saying they'll join the ranks of various competitive lists. By the time nationals, let alone worlds, come round, I'd expect to see a lot fewer of them in the top cuts, and a lot fewer triple JM builds generally. Especially because Imperial Veterans will be the new hotness by that time.

I could be wrong though. It will be interesting to find out.

Mmm, if anything I'd say the arrival of Defenders will play nicely into the hands of the Jumpmasters - a juicy 30-40 point small ship is exactly what they love to play against. Jumpmasters should be able to do a pretty good job of preventing the Defenders & Bombers from making much impact.

Jonus enhanced Gamma/Gamma Vets is NOT a fight that the Jumpmasters want to face.

It seems quite a few people in this thread are missing the point why Scouts are a meta problem. Even back in the day Whisper wasnt winning the majority of the tournaments because the few hard counters (mostly Han before Chiraneau arrived) were literally everywhere. The meta problem comes from the fact that it narrows squad choices down alot in competetive plays. Yes they have more counters than Whisper, but there were also a lot fewer ships and upgrade options at the time. Relatively speaking they might not have that many more counters than the Phantom.

Personally i think scouts will be dealt with either way, but it's a bit disheartening to see the designers missed the mark on key cards for two waves in a row (although TLT is rendered almost irrelevant by the arrival of scouts so it's no longer that big of an issue).

The TLT is not rendered irrelevant. The Gold/Syndicate Thug Y-wing is, due to the PS 3 of the Jumpmasters. Can't exactly take 4 Y-wings with TLT at PS 4. But it is still a great support option. You still see plenty of TLTs, just not the sole background of a squad.

And all the focus on the Jumpmaster, yet not on the Inquisitor, shows a real laser focus on the completely new. I have watched enough games to see the weaknesses of the the triple Jumpmaster list. Yet, people want to ignore just how powerful the Inquisitor enables the Imperial Aces lists? A cheaper Ace that is quite deadly and defensive, thus enables more freedom in what you can take in the squad?

I also strongly disagree about the Jumpmaster creating some sort of bland meta. The gatekeepers will always be popular. But there are some **** creative and fun lists that are making the cut.

Again and again this argument goes in circles.

Jumpmasters aren't dominating top end competition so it's obviously not strictly a balance issue, but they ARE having a very negative effect on the viability of a lot of lists. It's like it's opened up a big gap between Tier I/II and Tier III/IV lists that previously wasn't so big that a bit of play skill or luck couldn't close it.

There's too much of the stuff that people just play because they like playing it which the Jumpmasters stomp all over in a way that isn't even fun to play the game and lose.

I don't think it matters very much if Jumpmasters are winning every tournament or not. They're clearly upsetting a whole segment of the player base who are just as heavily invested in the game as those at the sharp end of tournaments, and just as important for the long term health of the game. IMHO they need pulling down a notch just to open the lower Tier listbuilding back up a little bit.

Jumpmasters hit TLT, regen and some generics hard. Crack swarms burn them. Aces burn them. Brobots can burn them. Ghost lists can burn them. Biggs lists can burn them. Beefy lists with maneuverability like dash or engine Dengar can burn them.

Who burned pre-nerf Whisper? VI Chiraneau and VI Han.

TLT and Regen have problems vs Jumpmasters yes.

Crackswar goes on player skill, but crack has edge.

Aces player skill, if Jumps get torps lined up, it can be end of Aces. Also if Jump has Intelligence Agent for example to see were you going.

Brobots i say, depends on flying, as you can easy burn brobot shields with torps and fly out of arc of it also.

Ghost, loses to Jumps easy (maybe if Biggs is in list and is positioned well, Ghost has a chance, else no chance with 0 agility)

Dash, Dengar again depend on player skill more i think, that pure can burn them.

I don't mind the Jumpmaster being Scum's toolbox ship. The problem seems to be the issue of spamming 3 with the Deadeye/R4 interaction. Simply removing the EPT slot from the Generic would eliminate the problem but I realise this is extremely unlikely.

Having thought a lot about it, my preferred fix would be to make Deadeye discard-on-use. THat would do a lot to make the JM less lethal long-term whilst retaining most of its alpha capacity.

Again and again this argument goes in circles.

Jumpmasters aren't dominating top end competition so it's obviously not strictly a balance issue, but they ARE having a very negative effect on the viability of a lot of lists. It's like it's opened up a big gap between Tier I/II and Tier III/IV lists that previously wasn't so big that a bit of play skill or luck couldn't close it.

There's too much of the stuff that people just play because they like playing it which the Jumpmasters stomp all over in a way that isn't even fun to play the game and lose.

I don't think it matters very much if Jumpmasters are winning every tournament or not. They're clearly upsetting a whole segment of the player base who are just as heavily invested in the game as those at the sharp end of tournaments, and just as important for the long term health of the game. IMHO they need pulling down a notch just to open the lower Tier listbuilding back up a little bit.

Jumpmasters hit TLT, regen and some generics hard. Crack swarms burn them. Aces burn them. Brobots can burn them. Ghost lists can burn them. Biggs lists can burn them. Beefy lists with maneuverability like dash or engine Dengar can burn them.

Who burned pre-nerf Whisper? VI Chiraneau and VI Han.

TLT and Regen have problems vs Jumpmasters yes.

Crackswar goes on player skill, but crack has edge.

Aces player skill, if Jumps get torps lined up, it can be end of Aces. Also if Jump has Intelligence Agent for example to see were you going.

Brobots i say, depends on flying, as you can easy burn brobot shields with torps and fly out of arc of it also.

Ghost, loses to Jumps easy (maybe if Biggs is in list and is positioned well, Ghost has a chance, else no chance with 0 agility)

Dash, Dengar again depend on player skill more i think, that pure can burn them.

So you are saying, skill is what will win. Not the lists.

I think once Imperial Vets comes out we will see a lot less of the Imperial Aces or Palp Aces. Just having the Defender titles will be enough to make a lot of people switch. There will also be some Tie Bomber fans out there, as well.

I've been a Bomber fan for a long time, but local meta wasn't very permissive of their use (rough to run 4x Bombers around lots of Dash, Phantoms, Crack swarms, and Palp Aces). I'm looking forward to getting them back on the table with the Gammas and Scimitars with the titles.

Before I stopped tournament gaming, I was doing fine with my 4 x Tie Bomber list. The only new thing is U-boats. That and TLT's just require you to go to Gammas instead of Scimitars. I don't see them being that hard, though.

Whenever I played my 4 Tie Bombers vs. a Soontir list, Soontir always died. I may not have won every one of those matches, but Soontir was always dead in the end. That was before Guidance Chip and soon LRS.

I don't mind the Jumpmaster being Scum's toolbox ship. The problem seems to be the issue of spamming 3 with the Deadeye/R4 interaction. Simply removing the EPT slot from the Generic would eliminate the problem but I realise this is extremely unlikely.

Having thought a lot about it, my preferred fix would be to make Deadeye discard-on-use. THat would do a lot to make the JM less lethal long-term whilst retaining most of its alpha capacity.

See this right here is a wrong fix. It fixes the "issue" that people have with ONE ship, whereas it now ruins Deadeye for the other ships that make good use of it.

Deadeye does not need to be changed...neither does the Jumpmaster for that matter. Folks need to stop looking for the EASY button to solve a problem that is not even a problem.

For the Lord's sake, I played a squadron of headhunters for fun and annihilated a U-Boat list and I didn't even know that I was facing it.

Again and again this argument goes in circles.

Jumpmasters aren't dominating top end competition so it's obviously not strictly a balance issue, but they ARE having a very negative effect on the viability of a lot of lists. It's like it's opened up a big gap between Tier I/II and Tier III/IV lists that previously wasn't so big that a bit of play skill or luck couldn't close it.

There's too much of the stuff that people just play because they like playing it which the Jumpmasters stomp all over in a way that isn't even fun to play the game and lose.

I don't think it matters very much if Jumpmasters are winning every tournament or not. They're clearly upsetting a whole segment of the player base who are just as heavily invested in the game as those at the sharp end of tournaments, and just as important for the long term health of the game. IMHO they need pulling down a notch just to open the lower Tier listbuilding back up a little bit.

Jumpmasters hit TLT, regen and some generics hard. Crack swarms burn them. Aces burn them. Brobots can burn them. Ghost lists can burn them. Biggs lists can burn them. Beefy lists with maneuverability like dash or engine Dengar can burn them.

Who burned pre-nerf Whisper? VI Chiraneau and VI Han.

TLT and Regen have problems vs Jumpmasters yes.

Crackswar goes on player skill, but crack has edge.

Aces player skill, if Jumps get torps lined up, it can be end of Aces. Also if Jump has Intelligence Agent for example to see were you going.

Brobots i say, depends on flying, as you can easy burn brobot shields with torps and fly out of arc of it also.

Ghost, loses to Jumps easy (maybe if Biggs is in list and is positioned well, Ghost has a chance, else no chance with 0 agility)

Dash, Dengar again depend on player skill more i think, that pure can burn them.

So you are saying, skill is what will win. Not the lists.

If lists are about equal yes skill

Yes there can be that one list is hard countered by other, then even skill will make you struggle

While I agree with some of the sentiment that scouts are overdone, I think the perfect solution to the scouts problem (and for X-wing in general, going forward) is the Hangar Bay Format. X-wing will only become bigger, and will thus have more rocks-paper-scissors matchups. A reasonable player with two lists can avoid truly bad matchups. Any player afraid of 3 scouts (or 4 tlt's, or 3 defenders) can bring his normal lists and a second list tooled to fight the "nemesis du jeur" on at least an equal footing.

Also, I think scouts will become more sparse once imperial vets hit - deadeye gamma vets and titled defenders are quite good vs scouts, and since they'll be the new hotness, taking 3 scouts will be kinda like taking 4 TLTs now... risky.

If there is a wave 9 hard counter to munitions (that would be sad), deadeye EPT or focus tokens in general, that would be kinda like a TLT hard counter post-scouts: mostly redundant.

I'm now getting ready for "OMG PLZ NERF DEFENDERZ" threads

Not really. Deadeye was only ever really going to be of significant use to the Gamma Vet more than once, and my feeling with it is that LRS/Crack is better.

Maybe EPT y-wings if they ever come into existence, but I don't think they should, Kavil excepted and he's not using ordnance.

But as things currently stand, the only things with EPT slots and multiple deadeye-able ordnance are Firesprays, Kavil/EPT bot y-wings, Scouts, and Bombers. Bombers get LRS as their fix, as do Firesprays, EPT y-tings probably don't need deadeye.

The only thing that currently really uses it more than once is JMs, and they're the only thing that really want to, because of the R4 Agromech combo.

As noted above, I think the JM is a point or two undercosted, but mostly fine - but at the same time, it IS probably a point or two undercosted, and FFG don't seem willing to errata point values or make errata fixes to cards much, so only a couple of options really remain is a fix is to be made.

I don't know that it's necessary, but it's interesting to discuss nonetheless.

I'm still going to place a lot of this as people not realizing what it meant to have ordnance being competitive.

I don't mind the Jumpmaster being Scum's toolbox ship. The problem seems to be the issue of spamming 3 with the Deadeye/R4 interaction. Simply removing the EPT slot from the Generic would eliminate the problem but I realise this is extremely unlikely.

Having thought a lot about it, my preferred fix would be to make Deadeye discard-on-use. THat would do a lot to make the JM less lethal long-term whilst retaining most of its alpha capacity.

How about not staying in arc? It's only PS3 after all. If this community is to be believed, you can never get anything that is higher in PS in arc and everything dies the first round of shooting.

Anyway, this discussion will pass as soon as the screaming about the overpoweredness of the bombers and defenders starts.

I already consider them more OP then the pre nerf Phantom. They are winning more and are a worse play experience.