I remember that rumor... Any luck?

In a word, No.

There are a few cards that do quite well against U-boats (mostly Scum, ironically) but the much-vaunted "hard counter" simply never appeared.

It is in HotR

It is in HotR

Which card is it in HotR

It might be an impossibility actually; any ship or modification that would probably relegate them to average would wreck other ships to unusable. The only way to "fix" them would involve increasing their cost or removing EPT from the generics or something like that which is existing issued cards; this has never happened and I doubt FFG would ever try such a thing (admits a real mistake).

Latts Crew - Glitterstim - Countermeasures.

three evade dice + unlimited focus + one added evade every time due to Latts and the jumpmaster overclocked stress = 0 to 1 damage per torp.

Latts Crew - Glitterstim - Countermeasures.

three evade dice + unlimited focus + one added evade every time due to Latts and the jumpmaster overclocked stress = 0 to 1 damage per torp.

Once. Then you have 3-5 other torps to deal with.

I think FFG fell flat on their promise of a hard counter and instead gave us a few softies.

There are quite a few options to mess with them. Snap Shot is good if paired with Tactician or R3-A2, M9-G8/Weapons Engineer can mess with their attack capability, old teroch can remove their tokens, a Burnout Slam or HotR Han can set up in close and outside their torpedo arc....there is no single 'hard counter' but plenty of things that can mess them about something rotten.

I found it tough to beat triple defenders with triple U-boats so that's a good counter.

I'm surprising even myself when I say that I think the meta has leveled out a bit - there are so many lists that can hold their own now.

The real counter to U-Boats are the subtle and not so subtle (x7) bumps that a lot of ships got.

Maybe the learning curve was a bit more steep this time around and it just took longer to settle - i.e. we were flabbergasted by U-Boats for longer than FFG thought.

Dengaroo isn't scary, despite the hype that popped up around the duo's emergence.

Latts Crew - Glitterstim - Countermeasures.

three evade dice + unlimited focus + one added evade every time due to Latts and the jumpmaster overclocked stress = 0 to 1 damage per torp.

Once. Then you have 3-5 other torps to deal with.

This is generally how it goes for me.

Dengar with Predator, Title and R5-P8

Ketsu with VI, Title, Latts, Countermeasures and Glitterstim

Set up rocks to block the white S-Loop options around the middle of the table.

Joust.

Two Jumps move three forward, third jumps performs a hard one and falls in behind the other two. They all focus. I move both ships forward four. Dengar will be out of range, leaving Ketsu as the only viable target for the three jumps.

Combat phase, pop glitter and countermeasures.

All three jumps either fire their two dice primaries at a four agility ship with consta-focus and do nothing or they take the bait and let lost three torps (which they normally do). Ketsu takes between 1 - 2 damage after all three have fired. If their dice are average, maybe even zero. (doesn't happen often!)

Second engagement, Ketsu is now sitting at range one of two jumps and maybe range one of the third, more likely range two. At this point, you move the mobile arc to the side facing the inside of the board in preparation. As you are on the board edge anyway, you still have one or two jumps in both arcs. Dengar swoops in and now range one of two Jumps as well.

Ketsu assigns the one that is range one of Dengar a tractor beam token and then fires, normally this assigns a second one. Dengar fires and seriously hurts it. Ketsu then eats the back Jump second and last torp of the game and generally weathers the primaries as no one wants to shoot at Dengar. If they overclocked, even better as Ketsu gets a nice evade out of it.

After that, it becomes a bump fest. The two front jumps either Kturn or bump (can't sloop because of rocks and Dengar) and the back one can't K turn so normally bumps.

I don't mind bumping, I still get to assign tractor beam tokens either via ability or by title, Dengar is a turret and doesn't care and Ketsu has the arc facing inwards so can still shoot, plus the Jumps will generally try to finish Ketsu and avoid Dengar double tap and retribution droid. No more torps get fired. A jump dies this turn, then its their 6 red versus my potential 8 + droid + Dengar ability when he gets them in arc.

After that, either Ketsu three banks out and moves the arc backwards, eats torps and dies, If that happens Dengar is normally in a position to finish the other two off anyway.

Now this is very niche match I admit but this happened three times in a row against three different opponents. I then lost to 5 A wings and a double Defender + Omega Leader list.

Alex stated, in an interview after the Jumpmaster was released, that 'Deadeye was a card he never thought he'd have to worry about'.

Wave 9 would already have been designed by the time the 3x Scout + Deadeye combo was discovered to be a strong build.

Any counter to the Jumpmaster in wave 9 would be a counter to how the designers imagined the ship to be used. They missed the power of the deadeye combo therefore there is no counter to it. There may well be a counter to some other JM5k build that never got traction but who knows what that might be/have been.

Alex stated, in an interview after the Jumpmaster was released, that 'Deadeye was a card he never thought he'd have to worry about'.

Wave 9 would already have been designed by the time the 3x Scout + Deadeye combo was discovered to be a strong build.

Any counter to the Jumpmaster in wave 9 would be a counter to how the designers imagined the ship to be used. They missed the power of the deadeye combo therefore there is no counter to it. There may well be a counter to some other JM5k build that never got traction but who knows what that might be/have been.

This is probably way more accurate than we'd like to think.

I never really considered the lead-time on a wave. Obviously every pilot/upgrade has a different development lifespan but when you consider that timing, we're lucky the Devs haven't let more Deadeye'd EPT PS 3 monsters through..

Alex stated, in an interview after the Jumpmaster was released, that 'Deadeye was a card he never thought he'd have to worry about'.

Wave 9 would already have been designed by the time the 3x Scout + Deadeye combo was discovered to be a strong build.

Any counter to the Jumpmaster in wave 9 would be a counter to how the designers imagined the ship to be used. They missed the power of the deadeye combo therefore there is no counter to it. There may well be a counter to some other JM5k build that never got traction but who knows what that might be/have been.

Yeah, waves have got to be design complete about 6 months before shipment to allow a 3 month production window and 2-3 months shipping and distribution. That means any hard counter would have a minimum lead time of 6 months if it got crammed in at the very end of a dev cycle, more likely 7-9 months.

It is in HotR

Which card is it in HotR

none, thus far

there is no torpscout counter in wave 9, only a surprisingly strong offering of ships that was met with one of the most negative/unimpressed reactions I've personally experienced on the forums

fortunately, at least the ARC turned out great!

there is no torpscout counter in wave 9, only a surprisingly strong offering of ships that was met with one of the most negative/unimpressed reactions I've personally experienced on the forums

I think part of the problem is that half the players were looking for the next U-boat in Wave 9 and the other half were looking for a U-boat killer.

Latts Crew - Glitterstim - Countermeasures.

three evade dice + unlimited focus + one added evade every time due to Latts and the jumpmaster overclocked stress = 0 to 1 damage per torp.

Once. Then you have 3-5 other torps to deal with.

I think FFG fell flat on their promise of a hard counter and instead gave us a few softies.

And it is still not enough to reign that monster in.

How long after release did the U-Boat come into domination, it takes a little time for a meta to solidify. To be honest most people will stick with what works, until 1 or 2 trail-blazers come up with something better.

Alex stated, in an interview after the Jumpmaster was released, that 'Deadeye was a card he never thought he'd have to worry about'.

I'm sorry but this really, really worries me.

Yeah i get in games with cards some combos can leak through... but lets be real here... The card pool isn't that large. And not play testing an elite talent made for missles/torpedos when adding extremely maneuverable ships into the game with torpedo slots is just bad to me.

maybe its hindsight but for multiple waves in a row they added buffs to munitions. they should of been aware of the stacking effect.

Alex stated, in an interview after the Jumpmaster was released, that 'Deadeye was a card he never thought he'd have to worry about'.

I'm sorry but this really, really worries me.

Yeah i get in games with cards some combos can leak through... but lets be real here... The card pool isn't that large. And not play testing an elite talent made for missles/torpedos when adding extremely maneuverable ships into the game with torpedo slots is just bad to me.

maybe its hindsight but for multiple waves in a row they added buffs to munitions. they should of been aware of the stacking effect.

The problem is Playtesters are fickle, they will playtest things they like to death, but ignore other things unless you specifically point them out. I remember working on a project, having reports come back that everything was great with one of the factions I wasn't particularly involved in for 2-3 months. After finishing most of the main balancing work on my factions I went to have a look, and there were 3 seriously broken things they hadn't noticed, mainly because they had entirely ignored a couple of units that didn't look like power houses. Having riflemen that could literally tape together their guns to perform a single shot which could autokill anything in the game was not good for the game. And also because they hadn't playtested the crews against one of the least played crews in the game they hadn't noticed that one of the abilities made the new crew a hard counter to them.

It sometimes takes months of the main player base playing something for the combos to click. How do you expect a group that is 1% the size to notice them every time.

The nerf is clearly the ARC.

They made that ship so friggin beautiful any sane player would choose to fly it over a Jumpmaster.

It might be an impossibility actually; any ship or modification that would probably relegate them to average would wreck other ships to unusable. The only way to "fix" them would involve increasing their cost or removing EPT from the generics or something like that which is existing issued cards; this has never happened and I doubt FFG would ever try such a thing (admits a real mistake).

Totally did it in Imperial Assault. Admitted the Mistake and "fixed" things by changing their costs.

When a representative of a company sais " yes well, theres a hard counter innthe next wave" that needs to be taken with a fistful of salt.

It's marketing.

Giving it the EPT was a mistake. Elite Pilot Talent...for a "Contracted Scout"? Meanwhile numerous unique pilots don't have an EPT?