Did you even read like...idk any of the threads I've made regarding the wave 9 ships?

Imo I think its black sun slicer. Damageee

Well, we've seen most of Waves 9 & 10 now and I think it is clear that there is nothing approaching a "hard-counter" to Scouts. Empire can cope fine with Swarms, /x7 Defenders and Palp-Acs (to a lesser extent) all having the ability to counter 3 Scouts. Scum of course can counter U-boats with other U-boats as well as Fangs and BMSTs (to a much lower extent).

That just leaves Rebels struggling with their low agility ships often getting vapourised by Ordnance before they can make use of their ability combos. Biggs has gone from being popular to virtually mandatory and Wes is all over the shop. Apart from them, small ships are struggling with lists like Dash-Lothal now doing their best to fly the rebel flag in competitive play.

A 1-2 point astromech that messed with opponent's tokens would help bring Rebels back into the game and provide a role to ships that can take it (such as the T65) which are currently struggling.

none of them really

which is why I'm always skeptical whenever FFG promises anything

never forget munitions failsafe, "the ordnance fix"

give it four more waves and maybe they'll get it right

Honest and legitimate question here... why do you even still play the game? It just seems you're always negative about pretty much everything.

Srsly. I'm not trolling, I'm honestly curious.

FGD just realized his buddies in the ARC-170 aren't going to see any competitive play... Which is definitely NOT a counter to the U-Boats. Or anything for that matter.

none of them really

which is why I'm always skeptical whenever FFG promises anything

never forget munitions failsafe, "the ordnance fix"

give it four more waves and maybe they'll get it right

Honest and legitimate question here... why do you even still play the game? It just seems you're always negative about pretty much everything.

Srsly. I'm not trolling, I'm honestly curious.

FGD just realized his buddies in the ARC-170 aren't going to see any competitive play... Which is definitely NOT a counter to the U-Boats. Or anything for that matter.

if by "just realized" you mean "has known since the Wave 9 spoiler"

the moment r3 was revealed to be the garbage that it was, that was it for possible torp scout counters in wave 9

there's still the unique astro in Hotr, so lets hope they don't **** it up

also thread necro etc

also also ARCs really aren't that bad, except v scouts. Literally anything else is fair game for them, from dengaroo to x7s to palp aces, which is a consistent theme among-st rebels it seems

I think the promised hardcounter is the Countermeasures card included in the Shadowcaster.

No, seriously. Regardless of it having being released several waves ago already, and virtually doing nothing against it.

I mean, the designers seem to be a little bit lost sometimes. Not all the time, but sometimes. Alex Davy admitted that sometimes they do create "duds", and I add that they cannot see the forest with all those trees in the middle.

He argued that when balancing the Jumpmaster, he didn't even think on Deadeye comboing with the ordnance heaven that its upgrade bar is, because Deadeye was a card long time declared useless.

But, how come? They included Deadeye in the same wave the Jumpmaster came with.

I feel like FFG is taking a shotgun approach to balancing the meta: Throw out so many crazy new upgrades and ships that something will come up that deals with the Uboat problem.

The hard counter was in the FAQ

The hard counter was in the FAQ

Not so much of a hard counter as a soft nudge.

The hard counter? Add options for Alpha strike attacks at higher PS so that 1 jumpmaster will either be destroyed or forced to accumulate buckets of stress to survive.

I think this is basically what is happening.

There is no hard uboat counter except within scum's own faction, the Fangs and Shadowcastors are going to give uboat spam a problem for sure.

Yes, lets put a stop to one of the most BS lists in the meta by offering a fix for it....but only let it be available to the same faction!

uboatspam will still be a thing. They may be less common because now theres at least 1 pretty solid way to shut them down, but that strat is instead of uboats so why not uboats anyway and uboat better than the other uboat to win?

shadowcaster isn't terribly well suited for jm5ks

it has the tools to outplay them (esp if you're amazing with rigged cargo), but it's a lot easier for the jm5ks to just torp them to death than it is for the caster to outplay them

it's very potent v anything else, though (again a common theme)

I think it was was the Fang as a whole...not just one upgrade.

a ship screamin IN YOUR FACE! is a direct counter to anything that does like some R2-3 privacy xD

I think it was was the Fang as a whole...not just one upgrade.

a ship screamin IN YOUR FACE! is a direct counter to anything that does like some R2-3 privacy xD

It is also the most overated ship in the wave by a country mile imo

Might be because I constantly run biggs and they just can't do jack diddly to your squad at that point because he's always at range 2

Ordnance, while I'm glad is finally useful, should never have done squat to fighters. Play any flight sim with weapons and see how easy it is to hit something as fast or faster than you and in many cases smaller. Ordnance needs to hit like a truck but be all but a bb gun against a tank to things built for speed and manueverability. In any media for Star Wars how many times is a fighter taken out by a missle or torpedo? All wishful thinking and 20/20 hind sight but cripes did FFG blow ordnance.

The hard counter to jump masters? Way too late to do without buffing something retarded and we go another year of bitching the fresh hell is broken. Being an ace flyer is the only real trump and god help us all if the top of the barrel use them.

I think it was was the Fang as a whole...not just one upgrade.

a ship screamin IN YOUR FACE! is a direct counter to anything that does like some R2-3 privacy xD

It is also the most overated ship in the wave by a country mile imo

Might be because I constantly run biggs and they just can't do jack diddly to your squad at that point because he's always at range 2

Most likely because it tends to go FWOOSH and die instantly.

and all its goodies only work in contitions better avoided and worded such a way they have hard time triggering :c

Yeah four hull is rough

The title is a lifesaver, but only for so long

Title and terry do get really annoying though. Still remember a game where it was basically braylen leading a conga line of Norra followed by Terry followed by Rau

Both fangs where eternally double stresses thanks to r3a2 gunner braylen pingponging stress on the two, but god **** Terry kept creeping on Norras rear arc (dirty old man!) and getting rid of her focus

And then freaking Rau just kept miraculously avoiding Tail gunner shots due to all the focus results rolled meaning I couldn't use TL plus title to add an additional crit

So that nonsense continued for like 3 rounds before norra let Terry overshoot her and finally got full mods v Rau for the kill

So, REALLY irritating but not amazing scary since they just lack the mods

Manny could fix that but it is still only 4 hull

Is there a way for Manaroo to get an Evade to pass?

Not yet short of igC and igD crew

In which case no fangs

You don't really need evades, though, just stuff to mod range 1 attacks after boosts and or rolls

Range 1 Rau is no joke, but without full mods the dice can and will take you for a ride

Another focus to use on defense is also lovely

Manny is doubly good with VI terry who is cheap and is better able to use his ability but gets PASTED without mods afterwards

Terry then helps v scouts which Manny is too high PS to block

So you get

34 point PTL title thruster rau

28 to 30 VI title Terry (optional thrusters)

Leaving 38 to 36 points for manny, who should probably grab k4 + unhinged for feeding locks and feedback array for being relevent after passing mods (this ain't no dengaroo build, she has to put in work)

I think the promised hardcounter is the Countermeasures card included in the Shadowcaster.

No, seriously. Regardless of it having being released several waves ago already, and virtually doing nothing against it.

I mean, the designers seem to be a little bit lost sometimes. Not all the time, but sometimes. Alex Davy admitted that sometimes they do create "duds", and I add that they cannot see the forest with all those trees in the middle.

He argued that when balancing the Jumpmaster, he didn't even think on Deadeye comboing with the ordnance heaven that its upgrade bar is, because Deadeye was a card long time declared useless.

But, how come? They included Deadeye in the same wave the Jumpmaster came with.

This sounds like the problem is the developers are listening too much to the user base and not having confidence and/or intelligence in their design.

This is something i will say the blizzard developers on hearthstone do extremely well, even if their player base doesn't know it. The HS devs ignore cards designated as 'bad' and understand the repercussions of new cards potentially creating deadly combos. Not all are caught obviously, and HS has had its fair share of unforseen issues. But it seems like the xwing guys dont take it into account enough.