This wave has introduced a lot of Anti-Ace tech, particularly in the Shadowcaster. We were promised a Jumpmaster counter, which many don't think we got. I had a thought. Swarmy lists are great against Uboats. Crack Swarm has already proven this, but it has a hard time against dodgy aces. Now that aces will need to be afraid of Slicers and automatic tractor beams, those lists become less attractive. With the presence of aces lists reduced, lists like Swarms can become more viable, which in turn can make Jumpmasters less of a problem. It appears we didn't really get exactly what they promised, but maybe a meta shift will facilitate Jumps becoming less prevalent.

What are your thoughts? Does this make any sense or am I way off the mark here?

Don't think it'll be enough personally

Esp as the crackswarm can't take BMSTs, as wild as that would be

This wave has introduced a lot of Anti-Ace tech, particularly in the Shadowcaster. We were promised a Jumpmaster counter, which many don't think we got. I had a thought. Swarmy lists are great against Uboats. Crack Swarm has already proven this, but it has a hard time against dodgy aces. Now that aces will need to be afraid of Slicers and automatic tractor beams, those lists become less attractive. With the presence of aces lists reduced, lists like Swarms can become more viable, which in turn can make Jumpmasters less of a problem.

What are your thoughts? Does this make any sense or am I way off the mark here?

You are way off the mark. Beating aces along is not relevant.

A lis needs to beat aces and scouts. If the list can not do this it can not become a new part of the meta and thus can not change the meta significantly. Yes, more anti-ace tools are nice, but those tools need to be valid against jumpmasters as well.

Which might be the case with full Z-swarms with 4 black market slicer tools. In that case the meta will change. But for this change you need first a list which really is reliable against aces and jumpmasters.

I think that the purported "hard counter" to JumpMasters does not exist and was just waffle on FFG's part. The recent FAQ did more to tone down JMs than anything we have seen in Wave 9 so far (and even that was not a huge change). Wave 9 includes a few ships that are decent against JMs (like the Fang) but hardly qualify as a "hard counter".

On a more practical note, I don't think it would have been feasible for Wave 9 to include a JM hard-counter. FFG have admitted that the action efficiency of triple U-boats took them somewhat by surprise. The first reports of Triple U-boats doing well at tournements started to come in around the middle of April and it was probably another month before the full implications of the meta-shift sank in.

I don't think that FFG would have had time to design, test and include a hard counter in the Wave 9 ships if they only realised the problem existed 3 months ago. I suspect that by the time they noticed the U-boat was OP, the current ships and cards coming out in Wave 9 were pretty much locked down.

Th key to U-boats power is the Deadeye/R4 (or Overclocked) cycle which permits maximum dice modification while ignoring the problems normally associated with low-PS ordnance carriers. Unless/until an upgrade is released that interferes with that cycle (such as spending a token of your own to strip a Focus token from an opponent), I don't think it can be classed as a hard-counter.

This wave has introduced a lot of Anti-Ace tech, particularly in the Shadowcaster. We were promised a Jumpmaster counter, which many don't think we got. I had a thought. Swarmy lists are great against Uboats. Crack Swarm has already proven this, but it has a hard time against dodgy aces. Now that aces will need to be afraid of Slicers and automatic tractor beams, those lists become less attractive. With the presence of aces lists reduced, lists like Swarms can become more viable, which in turn can make Jumpmasters less of a problem.

What are your thoughts? Does this make any sense or am I way off the mark here?

You are way off the mark. Beating aces along is not relevant.

A lis needs to beat aces and scouts. [...]

With respect I disagree. If it can do both it will become the dominate list and people will just calling for a nerf saying it is over powered. Remember that fractions of a percentage point in efficiency is enough to decry a lot of ships as being worthless. Calling for a list to become dominated is only setting the stage for trouble.

We have long lived with Rock-Paper-Scissors (RPS). We've loved it and complained but it worked. Now many hope for Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock. Same idea but more variety.

Me, just ignore the meta and play what looks fun. X-Wings with R2 and IA are awesome and a good match for TIE L/n fighters.

[Edit P.S. I'm not really fond of hard counters since it pushes the game even more into RPS play style. I'd far more prefer a wide variety of ships that are close enough for casual players]

People are expecting a hard counter to the U-boats and I think it's supposed to be all the Fang Fighter stuff.

I think, though, that stopping Imp Aces is what's going to open up counters against U-boats. As soon as you don't have to beat Soontir Fel in half your matches, you can start taking a lot of different stuff against U-boats.

See that's the thing, I agree we didn't really get what they promised, but maybe a meta shift will facilitate them becoming weaker. Maybe not.

In a tactical miniature game the phrase "hard counter" is very subjective. It's not a defined game term, right?

EVERYTHING is a counter (versus the other player) in this game: it's a dog-fight, we're trying to kill the other guy. I think 'hard counter' is an opinion. Just because one person thinks one ship is good against another ship doesn't mean for a fact (even though promised) that it is good to me .

It all comes down to "viability" in the competitive scene for tournaments AND personal opinions, so NOBODY will be able to figure out what the Hell Alex Davy meant.... unless someone asks him.

To me a hard counter is a build that is going to be another build almost always. i.e. it is a hard counter to something.

If that hard counter is not a direct counter to multiple builds in the meta or old-meta then it becomes the dominate and overpowered build needed a "hard counter' or nerf or new ships, or new upgrades for old ships in new expansions or.......

Scout counters already existed, as early as the transport.

Wes, Carnor and Palob all prevent scouts from doing what they do.

You know what works well against Uboats? PS 4.

But I agree with SE Apocalypse in a lot of ways. Unless BMST reaaaaaaaaaaally scares aces, so much so that their numbers drop by more than half at events, things that struggle against them will still struggle in the meta.

You know what works well against Uboats? PS 4.

But I agree with SE Apocalypse in a lot of ways. Unless BMST reaaaaaaaaaaally scares aces, so much so that their numbers drop by more than half at events, things that struggle against them will still struggle in the meta.

Also this. Made the cut at the Atlanta regional with 3 tala's, a Grey Y and Blount.

Never lost to scouts.

What is BMST?

Yeah, why would you want a space combat game with highly skilled pilots? Sounds lame. Let's just scrub fluff and fart out debris clouds and blow up asteroids.

Mobile fire arc for the win!

What is BMST?

The new hotness. Well, until Wave 10 is announced in an hour.

But its short for Black Market Splicer Tools

Yeah, why would you want a space combat game with highly skilled pilots? Sounds lame. Let's just scrub fluff and fart out debris clouds and blow up asteroids.

Mobile fire arc for the win!

Or...let's have a game where the Aces are so overpowered that it's not worth it to take anything else. That's lame.

You know what works well against Uboats? PS 4.

But I agree with SE Apocalypse in a lot of ways. Unless BMST reaaaaaaaaaaally scares aces, so much so that their numbers drop by more than half at events, things that struggle against them will still struggle in the meta.

Also this. Made the cut at the Atlanta regional with 3 tala's, a Grey Y and Blount.

Never lost to scouts.

What did your list look like? Wanna see and try out. Z-95 feels more powerful then T-65.

We pretty well have rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock right now. Just the lizard (aces flavors 2-4) is an origami one made of paper and looks different and rock (swarm) is too heavy to carry around for 1-3 tournament days.

I dislike "hard counters" that completely destroy old synergies and ships but tend to like ones that make lists evolve a little. Spliced tools could do both: aces will adapt and swarms could actually diversify and get a little easier to fly when you're more focused on bubbles than arcs.

Yeah, why would you want a space combat game with highly skilled pilots? Sounds lame. Let's just scrub fluff and fart out debris clouds and blow up asteroids.

Mobile fire arc for the win!

Or...let's have a game where the Aces are so overpowered that it's not worth it to take anything else. That's lame.

But you never play comp so why do you care? Aces are essential to the game, let's not counter them so hard they disappear entirely. Also, just throwing it out there, the deadliest list I faced at Regionals was comprised of all PS 5 and Mangler cannons. Not an Ace in sight, but do you think my Aces stood a chance? Bwahahaha! Nope. Mindlink, baby.

ANyways, what's more concerning to me about Slicers is not shutting down High PS Aces who PTL, it's the fact that Scum now has a number of what I call Stress Eaters; pilots/builds that can operate without actions and don't care about stress piles. And now, Scum has the only hard counter to Stress Eaters in the form of Slicer Tools. So you tell me, what kind of diversity will that bring? Scum v Scum for eight months? I thought the idea was to open up the meta so that everyone could stand a chance at competing, not just piling on wave after wave of new must-have hotness.

Plus, shitting debris and eating rocks is just lame as all hell. Wave 9 = Gimmicks. If X-WIng thrives on one thing, it's simplicity of design and complexity of variety. Simple designs, and lots of possible interactions are what produced the tightly knit rules set that most of us came here for. If I wanted to play with gimmicky ****, I'd still be playing Warhammer 40k.

The hard counter to Uboats is more awesome scum ships that Uboats players will have no other choice but to fly those instead.

But you never play comp so why do you care? Aces are essential to the game, let's not counter them so hard they disappear entirely. Also, just throwing it out there, the deadliest list I faced at Regionals was comprised of all PS 5 and Mangler cannons. Not an Ace in sight, but do you think my Aces stood a chance? Bwahahaha! Nope. Mindlink, baby.

...Because maybe I would go to events if there were some variety in list design. That and I'm just still sick of seeing Soontir Fel on the table all the time.

Also, it makes pick up games more enjoyable as I don't have to roll my eyes when someone pulls out another Palp Aces list.

When looking at Rock Paper Scissors match up when it comes to X-wing you have to remember that

1. not all 3 are used equally and
2. sometimes Rock beats Paper.

I remember listening to an interview with Paul Heaver on a podcast about the powerpoint he made when preparing for X-wing worlds and were talking about the two dominate list of the time. Han, Whisper, and Swarm. This was the Wave 4 meta and you know how it goes Han has an advantage over whisper which has an advantage over swarm which has an advantage over Hans. When deciding what list to use. I remember he mention when it comes to list winning at a disadvantage match up it was Han that did the best against Swarm when compared to Whisper against Han or Swarm against Whisper.

Now back to U-boats. They are not exactly like Fat Hans and the meta is different, but the whisper list has evolved to Imperial Aces and that list is very popular in the meta, which has an advantage over swarms. U-boats might have been the net list at the time but it was still rather new and not that many people went out and dumped $90 into 3 Jumpmasters. So With Aces still being the most common opponent taking a crack swarm might not be the best option.

You know what works well against Uboats? PS 4.

But I agree with SE Apocalypse in a lot of ways. Unless BMST reaaaaaaaaaaally scares aces, so much so that their numbers drop by more than half at events, things that struggle against them will still struggle in the meta.

Also this. Made the cut at the Atlanta regional with 3 tala's, a Grey Y and Blount.

Never lost to scouts.

Gentlemen, just the basic swarm idea to change the meta:

Binayre Pirate (12)

Binayre Pirate (12)

Binayre Pirate (12)

Binayre Pirate (12)

Binayre Pirate (12)

Black Market Slicer Tools (1)

Binayre Pirate (12)

Black Market Slicer Tools (1)

Binayre Pirate (12)

Black Market Slicer Tools (1)

Binayre Pirate (12)

Black Market Slicer Tools (1)

Total: 100

View in Yet Another Squad Builder