Hi All,

So, I see a lot of things in Wave 9 that pretty much stick it to PTL Arc Dodgers. From new ways to cause stress to the infamous Black Sun Slicer Tools illicit card for a single point. I feel there are a lot of ways to just take out PTL Aces, especially Soontir Fel. I am wondering how the game would be without so many PTL Aces around?

OK....ok....some of you hate Black Sun Slicer Tools and think it will ruin the game. Or you don't think it will really scare them away. Here's what I see happening:

1. Everyone takes Black Sun Slicer Tools and defeats all the PTL Aces.
2. People stop taking PTL Aces all the time and learn to fly other options.
3. Black Sun slicer Tools doesn't get taken as much because people have moved on from Imp Aces.
4. Slowly, a few people start to take PTL Aces again, but it's much more toned down.

So, I see a quick disappearing of PTL Aces and then it eventually coming back. In that bit of time when we don't see many PTL Aces....I'm curious as to what we might see?

At this point in the game, almost every ship needs to be at least above PS 3 for U-boats or basically PS 9+. That's pretty much been the case to deal with high PS Arc Dodgers. If they were gone, does that mean that perhaps we don't need the PS war as much? Would it be possible to see more mid PS guys in lists? It still would be good to have a higher PS, but maybe not as important as it once was?

What about U-boats you ask? Well....if we don't have to worry about high PS guys and trying to deal with Soontir Fel, maybe we can go with some PS 4+ higher guys that can dish out some damage? Maybe enough 3 attack die ships to blast apart the U-boats before they fire? Or....maybe some cheap ordnance ships that fire before the U-boats? You can get a lot of Z-95's or even some Tie Bombers that can blast apart U-boats. I'd like to think that if you aren't having to handle Imp Aces, you can probably find a lot more list options to really take down the U-boats. So...let's just think.....U-boats won't be as huge. I know at this point there will be enough people who will say that they wont' go away and you cant' deal with them and the game will just consist of lots of U-boats with no challenger. I say that's boring....at least for this discussion. Let's at least go with the idea that U-boats won't be HUGE in the coming meta, but something that will still have to be dealt with.

I see a lot of new ships that like to have their opponents in arc. Besides the Fang Fighter, there is the new Heroes of the Resistance out there. Dengar likes to keep people in arc. The ARC-170 and Tie /SF have a lot of arcs. Let's just say that we might see more ships jousting. Jousting might actually return. How would that make a difference?

B-wings were powerful for a while, but the rise of arc dodgers pretty much destroyed the BBBBZ list. I'm not suggesting we go back to that, but perhaps we might actually see some B-wings in lists again? They have a lot of hits and can dish out the damage, but weren't the most maneuverable. Could they come back?

The T-65 has been called under powered for a while now. The two big complaints were that it costed too much and the other was no re-positioning ability. The first one was handled with the Integrated Astromech card and improves the cost efficiency of the ship. If there aren't a lot of Arc Dodgers, perhaps it doesn't need the re-positioning as much? Could we actually see more T-65's on the table again? Maybe not all the high PS guys, but maybe even some of the mid-PS guys too?

The Kihraxz Fighter is often lumped behind the X-wing and people use the same reasons. It's cheaper than the T-65 and might not need the same repositioning in the game. Could they start to be used?

How would the game be different if there weren't all the PS 8+ PTL Arc Dodgers around? We will see a lot more Tie Defenders. What else would there be?

* Please try to limit the "It will never happen. PTL Aces won't go away" comments. I am just curious what the game would be like if they weren't all over the place. Let's just pretend if you don't think it would happen.

Neither the kihrakz nor the t-65 are particularly efficient jousters.

You just get more crackswarms, bbbbz, and brobots.

Neither the kihrakz nor the t-65 are particularly efficient jousters.

You just get more crackswarms, bbbbz, and brobots.

I was under the impression that the T-65 was about the same efficiency as the B-wing after IA. Is this not the case?

we could get some bombers I suppose

but I highly doubt BMSTs will just single-handedly erase PTL arc-dodgers

or the non-PTL arc-dodgers ala Vader and Whisper. No thrusters but it's not like they suck

none of the sub-par jousters are coming back. Crackswarm and torp scouts devour them

Neither the kihrakz nor the t-65 are particularly efficient jousters.

You just get more crackswarms, bbbbz, and brobots.

I was under the impression that the T-65 was about the same efficiency as the B-wing after IA. Is this not the case?

If there was a zero point astromech then that would be true. Unfortunately there is not.

Would still fly my crackshot swarm.

we could get some bombers I suppose

none of the sub-par jousters are coming back. Crackswarm and torp scouts devour them

This right here, if aces left it would be uboats and swarms all day long. They would eat anything that either can't outmanuever them or take their best shot to the face and keep trucking. There isn't much that can do that.

Neither the kihrakz nor the t-65 are particularly efficient jousters.

You just get more crackswarms, bbbbz, and brobots.

I was under the impression that the T-65 was about the same efficiency as the B-wing after IA. Is this not the case?

If there was a zero point astromech then that would be true. Unfortunately there is not.

You still get the value of the Astromech, so I don't see that as being an issue. I recall Major Juggler stating that the X-wing with IA was on the same jousting value as a B-wing.

we could get some bombers I suppose

none of the sub-par jousters are coming back. Crackswarm and torp scouts devour them

This right here, if aces left it would be uboats and swarms all day long. They would eat anything that either can't outmanuever them or take their best shot to the face and keep trucking. There isn't much that can do that.

You guys don't think there isn't something that could handle Torp Scouts and Crack Swarms? Nothing? I can think of Ordnance Z-95 Swarms or Tie Bombers with Assault Missiles as doing the job. Also, what about a list that had enough PS 4+ jousters that could burn down a U-boat before it could fire? And/Or strip the Focus from another U-boat? That would do it.

I did say bombers (I suppose)

Unless you get rid of Palpatine, you will never make PTL aces not worth flying. Especially once the Upsilon comes out and Soontir can use its Co-Ordinate action to get 3 actions stress free and still trigger his ability.

we could get some bombers I suppose

but I highly doubt BMSTs will just single-handedly erase PTL arc-dodgers

or the non-PTL arc-dodgers ala Vader and Whisper. No thrusters but it's not like they suck

none of the sub-par jousters are coming back. Crackswarm and torp scouts devour them

I mean, I beat one of the top players in the Atlanta area with 3 khiraxz and a non standard Iggy B (wired, tractor beam, FCS) and he was using 2 scouts and a party bus, a very strong lost right now.

People wildly overestimate the U-boat

I've also dominated pretty much every palp aces and scouts list with 4 Z's and a Y.

It's seriously not hard to win the damage race.

"Aces" are just cool. Top Gun was not a movie about PS2!

I think we will see certain aces more; specifically, aces with an extra action or a sensor slot so the can ditch PTL stress with a green. Corran will get more play; Vader will be unchanged; Soontir might get Crack Shot, Predator, or Juke.

Neither the kihrakz nor the t-65 are particularly efficient jousters.

You just get more crackswarms, bbbbz, and brobots.

I was under the impression that the T-65 was about the same efficiency as the B-wing after IA. Is this not the case?

They are comparable from a raw stats perspective at that point, but the Bwing still has a native BR and access to Sensor.

we could get some bombers I suppose

but I highly doubt BMSTs will just single-handedly erase PTL arc-dodgers

or the non-PTL arc-dodgers ala Vader and Whisper. No thrusters but it's not like they suck

none of the sub-par jousters are coming back. Crackswarm and torp scouts devour them

I mean, I beat one of the top players in the Atlanta area with 3 khiraxz and a non standard Iggy B (wired, tractor beam, FCS) and he was using 2 scouts and a party bus, a very strong lost right now.

People wildly overestimate the U-boat

Sure you can get lucky and win the dice trade (I've rolled four blanks on plasmas just last Sunday) or you can play like a god because U-boats, unlike PWTs, actually care about actions and arcs

But in a competitive setting those aren't great game plans (flying like a god is a great thing aspire to but man that **** is EXHAUSTING)

U-boats and crackswarm are simply mathematically more reliably than the less used jousters and that's why you'll see them there and other jousters only very rarely

Unless you get rid of Palpatine, you will never make PTL aces not worth flying. Especially once the Upsilon comes out and Soontir can use its Co-Ordinate action to get 3 actions stress free and still trigger his ability.

* Please try to limit the "It will never happen. PTL Aces won't go away" comments. I am just curious what the game would be like if they weren't all over the place. Let's just pretend if you don't think it would happen.

I also don't think it's just BMST that will be able to defeat Palp Aces. There is also a ton of other things like Ventress to double stress, Old Teroch to remove all of Soontir's tokens, and a host of other things. It's not JUST BMST. I do want to talk about what would happen to the game if they did go away, not really how feasible it happening is.

I am confused about all the hate I see about Palp and aces. I don't play tournaments so not in the loop but seems when I see top level results in MAJOR tournaments with some of the best players out there what wins? I've seen uboats, I've seen Dengaroo, I've seen crackswarm. Why is Palp such an issue if these other lists are clearly beating it?

Black Sun slicer tools might decrease the popularity of Fel, Jake, Tycho and Jax but other non-stress reliant aces can step up such as Vader, Whisper, Poe etc to take their place.

I'm still going to run Fenn Rau.

Zero losses to u-boats in high level tournament play. They seriously can't handle massed PS4+ damage. It's not even a contest.

Eh

Pouring over wave 9's box of "**** palp"

You have r3-a2 Braylen, the Uber stressmule

The SF is missing a piece, either a bid or the UPS shuttle (coordinate), to have QuickDraw fire before aces activate

The fang basically IS an ace. Terry is actually a worse version of Jax (except v Poe and juke) in arguably a better ship soeh

And the caster brings Ventress, BMSTs and Rigged Holds of awesome

And defenders absolutely wreck boats too. Too many tokens to punch through. Any generic defender has as much ability as soontir to negate 4 damage.

Eh I haven't had any issues v defenders

But I'm weird and love feedback and 4lom crew (and a hwk over a third boat, Palob/mux forever!)

Why they never seem to show up competitively is far beyond me

I've been enjoying a list running 3 loaded scum ywings running cluster bombs plasma torps unhinged astro mech title and dorsal turrets. It's good against uboats and you can pull out wins against swarm lists. I'm planning on added vectored thrusters to the list when the arc fighter is released. Basically with unhinged and vectored thrusters the using can run like an intercepted.

I am confused about all the hate I see about Palp and aces. I don't play tournaments so not in the loop but seems when I see top level results in MAJOR tournaments with some of the best players out there what wins? I've seen uboats, I've seen Dengaroo, I've seen crackswarm. Why is Palp such an issue if these other lists are clearly beating it?

For me, it's just the sheer number of Palp Aces or Imp Aces that are played. How many Imperial lists do you see without Soontir Fel in them? I think I also heard something about one of the recent (past 2 months) tournaments having something like 14 Imp Aces in the top 16. That's just silly.

There is also the idea that these guys take away a lot of importance of dial selection. You just always take a 2 bank or 2 turn and use your BR and Boost to get to where you need. It seems to take away predicting your opponent in the same way that the Phantom did.

Well no you can block an imp ace. That's ALL about predicting your opponent

Meanwhile, you could block a pre errata phantom you just had to block THREE of them (ie the decloak possiblities)

And then it'd still get FCs and a free cloak and whisper ability