Is it just me or do I recognize overall less respect and praise for triple-U-boat winners compared to winners with other squad lists (even Imp aces)?

I have never seen anything like this, even not with quad-TLT or Whisper builds some time ago.

Other experiences?

U-Boats and Quad-TLT are point and shoot. I don't feel winning with them deserve much praise. U-Boats practically guaranteeing 4 hits with torps doesn't take skill. No fun to fly against either - Here, I've shot you. I hope you have enough dice to evade all my attacks for the next 3 turns.

Palp-Aces I'm less bothered about. I like Arc-Dodging, and I'm constantly impressed with how the best players use them to their fullest potential. Clearly very powerful, but with the potential to implode.

Full disclosure - A) I play Rebel Regen. B) I've only played U-Boats twice, although I won both games. Palp-Aces, I don't have much luck - too low pilot skill means I can't keep them in arc. They're not much fun to fly against, but I can usually eek something out.

"Hear that? It's the galaxy's smallest lightsaber, and it's humming just for you."

I don't think triple U-boats is as easy at high levels as people say.

I also think palp aces isn't as hard as people say.

I think less so with Whisper, since there was always a hard counter in the form of fat Han, and less with TLTs since keeping people out of your r1 donut holes and not getting shredded required a bit of good flying.

But yes, I think with 3x jumpmasters its a little dangerously close to 'easy mode' for some people. The major complaint that I have heard is that it nearly completely removes major elements of positioning from the game, since it's so forgiving to mistakes.

went too fast and missed your r2 shot and now out of arc? no problem, shoot 3 dice with rerolls now, tank the damage, white sloop and fire off the torps next turn.
went too slow and misjudged where the enemy is? no issue, they don't get extra dice for being at range (not that it's a complaint of ordnance, more of deadeye)
jumped the gun and sent in your forces piecemeal? again, not an issue, it's very difficult to drop a jumpmaster in one turn, so he'll probably get the ordnance off anyways.

There are absolutely counters to this list. I do not dispute that, and I certainly think that it's not invincible, however it just feels weird to play, for a number of reasons, and feels like exploiting loopholes.

Why is a modified pirate/transport vessel so much more of a powerful ordnance carrier than a dedicated ordnance carrier?
How does it make sense that the freighter (like many large ships) has a vastly superior dial to a small agile military vessel?
I have to be honest, if triple jumpmasters were TIE bombers, I really think there wouldn't be as much grief.

So to answer your question, I think it's twofold, it doesn't feel fluffy, and second, it's got more than a few strong leg-ups against other lists.

I have no respect for this list. I'm yet to see any play deserving praise from anyone running the list. For the most part I don't see much in the game where it is played, it is very robotic and derivative.

That being said about the list; I do have respect for some of the players taking the list to the top. It is, in no way based on the list but the quality of their personal character.

X-wing is a competitive game so you cannot hate a player for taking the list that is strong and easy to play. Aces can be very taxing over time compared to U-boats and it requires a lot more thought.

When you meet a player and they beat you with TLT or U-boats, was it their skill or the list, or in some cases dice? When they show you knowledge about the game and outplay you, that's when you respect them. When they show strength of character off the table then you respect them. The list itself deserves no respect and because we only see the results on the forum as a list, it is hard to show praise.

X-wing is a competitive game so you cannot hate a player for taking the list that is strong and easy to play.

I think this bears repeating. When I go to regionals next month, I would expect to see Trip-Jumps. I don't have a problem with people taking very competitive lists to tournaments, that's the point of a tournament. But don't expect me to congratulate you on winning the thing.

Also, try to avoid them for friendly game nights... We had one guy start at our club, flew TLT's, then flew jumps. Not really a lot of fun, he'll struggle to find opponents if it continues.

I think the most frustrating thing for me was looking forward to them after hearing Alex Davy speak with such excitement about a ship that relied on getting in arc, despite being a PWT, and how positioning was so important.

but then they gave the **** thing so many slots that if you build it either as a torpedo boat you are guaranteeing 4 hits a turn, or if you stick the droid on it meant for the y-wings the dial no longer is even a tactical consideration and it just flies like any other pwt, again with enough slots to give it all the action economy it needs.

I think I have major issues with large PWT ships being granted so much action economy when the smaller ships get so little outside of things like PTL.
It removes a fairly important aspect of the game for me, which is judging when to move in and strike, and if your atttack fails, then having the skill to maneuver yourself into that advantageous position again.
With a ship like 3xJM, or even 2xJM, it's not difficult to build a ship that just pumps out enormous damage no matter where you really fly it.

The 3-die PWTs pay a significant sum just to be 3-die PWTs. If they lacked action economy, they'd be absolutely worthless.

I did at one point say if ordnance became good it would result in dumb alpha strike lists.

Which is one of the problems with the wave - if Scouts weren't a thing, then the Ordnance Alpha Strike list would (probably) be 6x Z-95 w/concussions and chips.

...and that's a bad list. It will win games, but it's the same level as 4x TLT - usually that will go 3-2 in five rounds of Swiss and shouldn't be winning tournaments. It's a yardstick in the meta, not a dominant anything. Sure, it's stupid, but you can do better.

The 3-die PWTs pay a significant sum just to be 3-die PWTs. If they lacked action economy, they'd be absolutely worthless.

I did at one point say if ordnance became good it would result in dumb alpha strike lists.

You're absolutely right, I'm simply expressing my disappointment that one of the things Alex Davy had mentioned was going to be so exciting about the jumpmaster was that it was very important for it to be facing the right direction and that significant forward planning would be needed because of the asymmetric dial.

What we've found in practice is that this is not the case, because with 3x JM at least one of three will be pointing the right direction, and the other two have sufficient action economy that it's not particularly punished against anything without autothrusters if the JM aren't looking the right way, and it won't matter the next turn because the abundance of white and green maneuvers for turns and s-loops makes the next turn being in arc much more simple.

They should have been 28 points. At 25, there's just far too much room for upgrading three of them.

Outer Rim Smuggler cost 2 more than the current Scout, but has two less pilot skill, less agility, far less upgrade slots, no barrel roll, that dial, with just two more hull points. That's not right.

Scouts aren't invincible, but they are too cheap.

The 3-die PWTs pay a significant sum just to be 3-die PWTs. If they lacked action economy, they'd be absolutely worthless.

Well, its a ***** on dengar. Free yarget lock for every move with a focus and plently of shooting with PS9, and PTL. Not a fan.

They should have been 28 points. At 25, there's just far too much room for upgrading three of them.

Outer Rim Smuggler cost 2 more than the current Scout, but has two less pilot skill, less agility, far less upgrade slots, no barrel roll, that dial, with just two more hull points. That's not right.

Scouts aren't invincible, but they are too cheap.

The ORS is way overcosted and probably should've been cheaper, not the other way around. FFG has not considered themselves that bound to wave 2 pointing policies.

The 3-die PWTs pay a significant sum just to be 3-die PWTs. If they lacked action economy, they'd be absolutely worthless.

Well, its a ***** on dengar. Free yarget lock for every move with a focus and plently of shooting with PS9, and PTL. Not a fan.

Dengar is pretty good but a 56 point ship should probably have plenty of actions available to it. 58 Dash is a 3 action ship that rolls 4 attack dice most of the time and doesn't care about rocks.

Super Dengar in particular lacks defense for a guy who wants to get in the thick of things and go face to face with someone. He's a cool ship but i've never seen him top 8 anything compared to Dash.

The 3-die PWTs pay a significant sum just to be 3-die PWTs. If they lacked action economy, they'd be absolutely worthless.

Well, its a ***** on dengar. Free yarget lock for every move with a focus and plently of shooting with PS9, and PTL. Not a fan.

I have to agree. The biggest thing which kept Dash from being overly irritating to play against was you could always stick a ps8 or ps9 ship in a squad and know that you had some defense against a PTL dash. With Dengar abusing the hard 1 barrel roll and the security droid, it's just focus, target lock, barrel roll, at ps9.

The action economy for large ships is fine, but when the ps is driven up past 7 on a large ship with ptl boost barrel roll+economy, or even just removed from the equation like on the 3xJM, it's just not fun to play against.

It's not a top ranking ship, it has too many flaws, like defense, as has been mentioned, but it's not particularly fun to play against.

Anything which can basically fly backwards in this game just removes me from the immersion straight away. Something like the uncanny valley I guess.

I've pretty much stopped watching any replays etc that involve u-boats, deja vu all over again. It feels to me that people jsut play them to get the easy tourney wins.

Something said earlier really stands out for me. The alpha strike list as a meta archetype doesn't bother me too much. Ordnance sits at that range 2-3 band, which means if you're careful, and plan well, in one turn you can go from being out of range to being range 1 in one turn, and if you've used some ships to bait, or maybe feinted, you can make the opponent whiff the xx23 tracer, or their target locks, etc. etc.
there are many way to poke holes in alpha strike lists and to get enough ordnance on the table for it to be effective means compromises elsewhere.

Maybe part of the issue is that when large ships take ordnance, many of those disadvantages just aren't there. (Low health ships, low defence ships, cripplingly low PS, poor primary attack, reliance on target locks, etc.)

I did at one point say if ordnance became good it would result in dumb alpha strike lists.

I did the same. Still, outside triple u-boat it hasn't become my worst fear. The problem with the jumpmasters is that they can take a perfect combo of upgrades to make them outright frightening.

Having faced this list I'm not a fan. I will not be going out to buy three large ships just to win tournaments but it does feel like fighting uphill when facing them. I expect to see more today...

They should have been 28 points. At 25, there's just far too much room for upgrading three of them.

Outer Rim Smuggler cost 2 more than the current Scout, but has two less pilot skill, less agility, far less upgrade slots, no barrel roll, that dial, with just two more hull points. That's not right.

Scouts aren't invincible, but they are too cheap.

You know, even at 26 they would be a lot more limited than they are now. A list with no bid and all plasmas would have to drop an EM, and that's with no crew.

I don't understand all the fuss, I have yet to lose to 3 scouts and have regularly beaten the crap out of them and even made a bunch of Them cry.

In fact, the only time 3 scouts even stood a chance was when one of the Girl Guides with them called the police. Squealers.

If you want respect, fly something with skill.

I don't blame people if they don't respect the list.

I for one hate it.

Just as much as quad TLT. Most boring games ever.

When I hear of people flying tripple uBoats I can't help think they lack skill, and are going for the easy win.

While yes there are counters to it, such as blocking, get into range 1 ( but likely range 2-3 of others ) there really isn't a whole lot to it.

If you were able to take a Focus action your basically going to get 4 hits.

Even if a ship doesn't have a shot out its front it still has a turret, which can still do dmg against things with no autothrusters

People complain about the pal aces list so much, but who's fault is that?

The tripple uBoats push a lot of other stuff out which helps the ace squads thrive.

Also you give a new player one of either lists to play, (uBoats or palmobile aces) and he's going to get much better results with the uBoats

If you bump with one uBoats or hit a rock its not game over.

Not so with fel or whisper, it can be game over pretty fast.

I know one thing for certain. If I see a tripple uBoat player at a competitive event, I'm going to be a lot more strict on the miss opportunities rule vs someone flying something that requires a lot more skill.

Since your flying an easy mode list, all you have to do is remember to focus. If you can't remember that much you don't deserve to win, and I'm not going to hand it over to Ya that easily.

I already have an irational grudge against turrets, and all the other lovely things u boats can do just make me feel even better.

I view triple u boats as the evil oppressing list that deserves no love, while palp aces is just so much fricking cooler. Beating u boats is quite satisfactory though.

Edit: to clarify, I feel this way about the LIST and those feelings do not refer to the players using it whatsoever.

No-one wins with jumpmasters in big tournaments purely because it's 'easy mode'. No-one wins in a big tournament with any list purely because of the list. Sure, you can take it to your 16 player game night and come out on top because everyone was running generic E wings and Expose-interceptors but at the top level (like the Yavin open - won by the Pattiswarm - or Regionals) you win because of 3 things.

1. Player skill

2. List composition

3. Luck

The Triple Jumps appear at the top of tournaments often because they remove (some of) the luck and they are a good list in a vacuum. They also can be forgiving - but only against unskilled opponents.

However, the players who fly them have to be good at the game to actually win. Contrary to what the belief seems to be here you can't just walk into your game store, buy 3 JMs and get top spot at a regional. You need to have a solid understanding of Joust-wing & the rule of 11, be able to estimate range well, plan to avoid bumping when your opponent can do so easily, deal with awkward asteroid placements & feints in opponent deployment, have a plan to deal with aces and crackswarms (and have a thick skin to ignore all the comments about how you're winning easy mode).

I think the Jumpmaster is 1 point undercosted because it just brings it into the region of 3 fully-kitted JMs coming in at under 100, which was a design oversight caused by the designers not wanting to see another Wild Space Fringer appear, and going too far the other way.

If you want respect, fly something with skill.

I know one thing for certain. If I see a tripple uBoat player I'm going to be a lot more strict on the miss opportunities rule vs someone flying something that requires a lot more skill.
Since your flying an easy mode list, all you have to do is remember to focus. If you can't remember that much you don't deserve to win, and I'm not going to hand it over to Ya that easily.

This is a disgusting attitude and makes you much worse than any player flying 3Jumps - Oh no! They fly a list I don't like! I hate them and they don't deserve anything!

edit - are you saying that you give non UBoat players easy wins? Or that UBoats beat you easily.

Where's JBR7's bad post image when you need it?

As I said above, you're either flying against a highly skilled player, or failing to capitalise on their weaknesses when you lose to a triple jump list.

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All that has occurred with 3JMs is the skill-bar has dropped. What I mean by this, is that instead of poorly designed and quirky lists going to the medium-high spots in tournaments but being pushed out by Palp-Aces/Rebel regen/Swarms, you have these lists being removed by triple Jumpmasters because if you don't know how to play against them, they're a hard list to beat. Hence, instead of seeing variety in the middle of the table, you see good players flying OK lists, and OK players flying good lists - namely Jumpmasters as they're all the rage. At the top of the tables, you get good players and good lists - one of which is U boats.

Skill is still the requirement to win tournaments and Jumpmasters hasn't done this. All I can say is, I hope that Paul Heaver takes Jumpmasters to a 4th worlds win and wait to see you accusing him of being skill-less and playing 'easy mode'.

I already have an irational grudge against turrets, and all the other lovely things u boats can do just make me feel even better.

I view triple u boats as the evil oppressing list that deserves no love, while palp aces is just so much fricking cooler. Beating u boats is quite satisfactory though.

there is something extremely satisfying about outmaneuvering a higher PS arc-dodging list.

Skill is still the requirement to win tournaments and Jumpmasters hasn't done this. All I can say is, I hope that Paul Heaver takes Jumpmasters to a 4th worlds win and wait to see you accusing him of being skill-less and playing 'easy mode'.

I think the general complaint isn't just that jumpmasters are a guaranteed win,

it's that it feels like it is players taking advantage of an exploit in the game design.

regarding what you said earlier, it's again not that the jumpmasters are an easy ticket to success, however they do, as you say, lower the bar considerably for skill required to field a 100 point list that is competitive.

The meta has shifted in direct response to the list. This means that list-building must now involve some element that lets you deal with one very specific type of jumpmaster squad.

This kind of forced reactionary listbuilding is what I think a lot of players got tired of with phantoms, and what they are tiring of now.

Just the same old "it's the new hot squad, let's belittle it as much as possible because I'm so cool". it is a new squad that made it difficult for old squads to remain top squads. Thus it must me easy mode, because damnit, if it wasn't I shouldn't have been force to change squads/tactics.

Dismissing any top squad as "easy mode" is just a sign that you aren't really worth paying attention to when discussing the meta.