Too early to tell with wave 3/4 out. Meta is unknown. Could be open or could just be more rhymes and demolisher

Rhymer and Demos are overrated

Of the four ships we have just been given I think Flotillas are going to have the biggest impact, followed by interdictors. The cheap activations and moving carrier roles to the lighter ships, along with their new upgrade slot, are going to spawn new dynamics for support and offense. The mere ability to stick your Admiral in a cheap activation Sudan and fly it into the sun is an entirely new line of strategy.

The Interdictor I feel is unpredictable. The board-changing effects are a little hard to predict, because we as players are not often faced with the difficult choices the Interdictor will put before us. However, for all the board-state changing it does, it doesn't contribute to combat directly much. It fires Ions and has super engineering, but that's it. You could probably get more directed damage out of a VSD-I with upgrades to bring it up to 90 points.

The Liberty doesn't feel as heavy as the others, because it's another ship. Two turbolasers and the Mon Karren are going to be the biggest impacts the Liberty has on the game I think. The Rebels have only had the Nebulon as their forward attacker in the past... and until I think we get some medium forward attacker of some kind, forward-attack is still going to feel a bit like a novelty in Rebel lists that don't take Yavaris or Salvation.

Now another way to look at this is how the two big meta elphants, Demo and Rhymer, are impacted.

Demo now has an arch-nemesis in the Mon Karren I think, since both of them are nasty title cards. Mon Karren with XI7s and Intel Officer... is this combination as bad as the rush Demolisher? The MK feels almost like it was made specifically for Demolisher to crush, given the protection layout of the big boat.

Though Demo can still activate outside of the reach of the G-8s and Tractor beams, the skill level of the Demo just got higher I think. Obstacle movement and speed 0 zones are things a Demo player has to take into account for when deploying. Only a purpose-built Interdictor will have a chance at stopping a Demolisher cold (Tractor Beams and G8), but it remains to be seen how effective it will be.

Rhymer on the other hand now has Bomber Command center to lean on, Jamming fields to hide under, and cheaper ships (at the cost of split activations) to utilize. Rhymer's enemies now have Kallus and Toyrn Far to use when attacking him, but I don't think much has directly changed about Rhymer except for Bomber Command center making him better. It will tie him down to a Flotilla, but that's a small price to pay.

Now another way to look at this is how the two big meta elphants, Demo and Rhymer, are impacted.

To be fair, the counter to both these elephants already exists within the current meta. It's a higher number of squadrons

Demo doesn't like a welcome party warmly thrown by bombers. A smart squadron strategy can also mess with Rhymer's balls.

In the current meta, people tend to think this way : Rhymer and Demo kill ships easily. I need more ships to tank the shots. Well, more ships only bring more targets to both and they also reduce the number of squadrons you can actually field.

If we remember last Worlds, the GenCon special was defeated in the finals by a 2 Gups + CR90 + A-Wings. 8 of them IIRC.

People hate Demo and Rhymer because it messes up with the perfect plan they have when list building. If you make no plans during list building but give yourself the tools to make good plans in deployment and the first turns where everything is decided, then you have a chance regardless of what is thrown at you. It's so easy to destroy the effectiveness of a ship just by position that it's really the key point here.

Let's take a look at the squadrons above. Just positioning them where Demo will want to be allows the player to shoot them without needing an activation. Throw 6 squadrons with the Bomber keyword right where he is going to be, and he's definitely going to hurt.

Against Rhymer, a smart positioning of squadrons (aka splitting them up) will ensure that Intel ships can't be everywhere at once. Engaging the same squadron from multiple angles will make sure that more than one Intel squadron is needed to free the ship up. Until then, they're stuck in with subpar AS firepower until they manage to clear out the blockage. When you consider that even Firesprays only do 1.5 damage on average per squadron, it's not too frightening when you can throw cheap TIE Fighters or Hull 5 ships.

Do not try and bend the meta. That's impossible. Only try to realise the truth. There is no meta.

Seriously. I stick to concepts due to completely random matchups. The last 5 lists I played were all different. Cracken bomber, Madine MC80 AS/MC80 BC, Tarkin VSD/VSD/Interdictor/Goz/Goz, Dodona MC80 Command, Liberty, Neb, Floatilla, Bombers and not a Demolisher in sight...it's crazy!

I) initiative/activations, is first or second preferable.

* What objectives help me if I lose the choice whilst trying to deny the widest range of "concepts" (Rhymer, Large Ships w/ Xi7, MSU) picking a favourable objective of mine for their own use
* What is the activation order for both first or second, is it better to pick first or second?

II) Identify and exploit strengths, how to mitage weakness

* They are Bomber, I am all ship, I need to kill their carrier ASAP and try to split their bomber force. If I do more engeering commands than usual I can repair the bomber damage and (try) kill the carrier before they kill me etc...

This leads us to...

III) Final Risk Assessment

* What are the pros/cons of the plan?
* Expected outcome of plan? (damage averages, defenses, expected responses to these)
* Outcome of failure?
* A safer alternative?
* Make new plan or execute?

The risk assessment doesn't need to be on marco level either, you can use this for simple target selection

I had a very informative game vs Madine Mon Karen. I had the choice to try to engage MK or fly at three other small ships across the board. I knew it would not kill me if I failed to block, and i did fail to block it, but i failed to take into account that I would not score any points if we flew past each other due to nothing being on the board to shoot!

Experience helps make more informed decisions in uncertain terrain.

Yes there will always be a place for a 'meta call' as someone from our own playgroup turned up with 4 Bwing 4 Scurgg because he knew the squadron players were testing all ship/Tie screen only (in my culture we call this a **** move)...but outside of narrow hate picks I see no meta.

I don't think it happens by accident. We should thank the game designers for paying attention to these forums and other input to use player experience to maintain game balance. I don't think of it as no meta, I think there are a huge number of ways to go. They just all have several ways to counter them as well.

I think the Interdictor's combat power is being undersold, if only a little. With SW7 it has a guaranteed 3 damage from each arc and will make it four more often than not. Sure, two shots of four damage isn't devastating, but it's right in that area where using defense tokens becomes a headache; do you really want to use your brace on either of those hits? What if you already used it because an ISD/VSD/GSD took a shot? It's not going to be your core killer by any stretch of the imagination, but its contribution won't be trivial, either (although, sure, obviously nowhere near what you'd get if you spent those 130 points on a dedicated gunnery platform).

This, of course, assumes you're double arcing.

Though Demo can still activate outside of the reach of the G-8s and Tractor beams, the skill level of the Demo just got higher I think. Obstacle movement and speed 0 zones are things a Demo player has to take into account for when deploying. Only a purpose-built Interdictor will have a chance at stopping a Demolisher cold (Tractor Beams and G8), but it remains to be seen how effective it will be.

G8 does prevent the triple tap from beyond long range, though. Sure, run in at speed three, can't do anything about that. Can prevent Demo from using engine techs so, sure, Demo gets to fire two red dice. How terrifying. And then next turn Demo's only short range shot will be subject to Targeting Scramblers, so...yes, it's still dangerous. But it's not first/last instagibbing anything in a fleet running G8 and Scramblers.

I think the Interdictor's combat power is being undersold, if only a little. With SW7 it has a guaranteed 3 damage from each arc and will make it four more often than not. Sure, two shots of four damage isn't devastating, but it's right in that area where using defense tokens becomes a headache; do you really want to use your brace on either of those hits? What if you already used it because an ISD/VSD/GSD took a shot? It's not going to be your core killer by any stretch of the imagination, but its contribution won't be trivial, either (although, sure, obviously nowhere near what you'd get if you spent those 130 points on a dedicated gunnery platform).

This, of course, assumes you're double arcing.

Though Demo can still activate outside of the reach of the G-8s and Tractor beams, the skill level of the Demo just got higher I think. Obstacle movement and speed 0 zones are things a Demo player has to take into account for when deploying. Only a purpose-built Interdictor will have a chance at stopping a Demolisher cold (Tractor Beams and G8), but it remains to be seen how effective it will be.

G8 does prevent the triple tap from beyond long range, though. Sure, run in at speed three, can't do anything about that. Can prevent Demo from using engine techs so, sure, Demo gets to fire two red dice. How terrifying. And then next turn Demo's only short range shot will be subject to Targeting Scramblers, so...yes, it's still dangerous. But it's not first/last instagibbing anything in a fleet running G8 and Scramblers.

G8 does NOT stop triple tap, just reduces the window it can be launched from. You can still go from outside long to short range at speed 3.

Targeting scramblers will still have a reasonable effect most of the time.

Oh? Well, nobody local to me has figured out how to triple tap without ET, so for my purposes it's the same

G8 does prevent the triple tap from beyond long range, though. Sure, run in at speed three, can't do anything about that. Can prevent Demo from using engine techs so, sure, Demo gets to fire two red dice. How terrifying. And then next turn Demo's only short range shot will be subject to Targeting Scramblers, so...yes, it's still dangerous. But it's not first/last instagibbing anything in a fleet running G8 and Scramblers.

Skilled Demo players will be wise to this and try to find a way to close on a target to end up in range. With Engine techs Demo has speed 4. Even at speed 3, they might still get into threatening range when starting outside of the affected zone. An Interdictor can zap them with tractor beams as well to restrict their movement, but if you go down that path you're building a 90 point pinata to directly counter the Demolisher.

But beside all that, what the Interdictor does is make Demolisher have a higher skill requirement to run. Now a Demo driver has to be aware of basically every Experimental upgrade the Interdictor is carrying. G8s for obvious reasons, G7s create a zone the Demo needs to ramp-up out of (which only Ozzel or a Yularen-carrying Demo is probably not going to care about), Grav-shift re-routes can move obstacles into flight paths, and Targeting scramblers can take a good post-OE roll and turn it to crap. The Interdictor might be the single greatest ship-piece counter to Demo when you think about it. But for all that, there is no obvious way it shuts down Demo completely. Not that I've seen anyway, sadly I have yet to get any of my wave 3/4 stuff to the table.

And I think the one-speed reductions like Konstantine or anything else is not enough to stop a determined Demolisher. In my opinion, you'll have to hit it with two speed changers to really make a difference, which is why loading up Tractor Beams and G8s is a good idea. Konsantine makes it better. It starts to get pricey though.

Oh? Well, nobody local to me has figured out how to triple tap without ET, so for my purposes it's the same

It happens but it is MUCH harder to pull off. This is due to the loss of what the extra 2-3 inches.

Demolisher seems to find a lot of B-wings as of late in our area. Poor thing usually dies before doing anything.

"Its not my fault..."

Demolisher seems to find a lot of B-wings as of late in our area. Poor thing usually dies before doing anything.

The "poor thing" can drown in the 5th level of hell for all I care. . . The B-Wings are a great way of sending it there.

Demolisher seems to find a lot of B-wings as of late in our area. Poor thing usually dies before doing anything.

The "poor thing" can drown in the 5th level of hell for all I care. . . The B-Wings are a great way of sending it there.

The Imperial players will probably all agree that we feel the same way when we pop Yavaris or a TRC90. They make a satisfying "squishy" sound.

Oh? Well, nobody local to me has figured out how to triple tap without ET, so for my purposes it's the same

It happens but it is MUCH harder to pull off. This is due to the loss of what the extra 2-3 inches.

Either...

Phrasing!!!

Or

That's what she said!