I agree that Fantasy Flight Games aren't taking into account the biggest problems. I can't tell about Uboats since I never played with or against them, only heard they were really strong as meta game, which is why they nerfed Deadeye. But... what about Palpatine? For me, that card breaks the whole game, if it can't suffer any kind of nerf like be limited to a range instead of taking effect in the whole map, then it should be banned in tournaments at least. That upgrade alone is so strong that doesn't have anything that can counter it directly

So many incorrect statements here.

1. They are taking it into account, as the rebel regen and stress lists were what kept Palpatine in check, before the arrival of the Nerfmasters. Now those lists can be used again.

2. If Palpatine breaks the entire game for you, I'd hazard a guess and say that you've never played competitively at a high level/or simply don't know how to handle a Palp Aces list. The default kill order is weakest ace -> Shuttle -> toughest ace. If you can bum-rush with fast Attack 3+ ships it is Shuttle-> weakest ace -> toughest ace.

3. "That upgrade alone is so strong that doesn't have anything that can counter it directly" but that is the thing, it isn't strong alone, it takes the right combination of those remaining 71 points in order to click - how often do you see it in a TIE Swarm, with Bombers?. And the die mod is ONCE per turn, often forcing the Palp player to save it for defense, in which case it mechanically becomes an instant regenerating shield/hull (that, granted; can also deny certain triggers). Rebels have had regen in spades for ages AS WELL as strong control options and Turret ships. Now they're back again.

The devs will likely wait and see how the return of the Rebels will influence the game, before moving on to Palpatine/something else.

1) So the reason Palpatine exist is to counter the regeneration the rebels have? I don't see that way. Your Aces not being hitted because of Palpatine while my shield gets depleted faster than it can regenerate isn't what I would call "ok".

2) What if Palpatine is on a turret that takes forever to kill like the Decimator? What if the Ace with the Decimator is a Soonthir Fel? Doesn't sound that easy now, eh? I see now I am not the only one who didn't played competitively, and you are right, I didn't yet. But I know the menace Palpatine can be. It is not that simple as you may think to deal with that Palp Aces.

3) Again, what I said above, Palpatine is stronger than regenerating a single shield.

Trickshot, K4 Droid, Extra Munitions, Plasma Torps, Chips - 33 points.

Cool. You're kinda predictable in the way you move if you want to get your target locks (and you do) and you'll only get to fire your torpedoes on the 2nd round - and that's assuming that whatever you chose to lock doesn't move out of arc or into R1. As I said earlier, you'll probably lose your first jumpmaster before it gets to fire it's first torpedo and aces will run rings around you since they know who you've locked by the time they make their move. I suppose if you're really good at blocking you might win something with this. But by "something" I mean a game, not a tournament. The list has too many exploitable weaknesses to do well against majority of competitive lists out there. Still, give us a shout how you've done with it.

And still has a 2 dice primary. WoW a 25 points ueber-tie ^_°

2 points cheaper than an ORS, 5 points cheaper than a WSF. Same primary attacks. Better upgrades and dial.

Jesus, people still compare the cost of Jumpmaster to utterly useless, overcosted ships? I wonder if you compared the TIE/fo to the pre-buff Scyk, and the T-70 to the Starviper when they came out. Do you think those ships are OP, too?

How about just comparing it to a ship that was seen competitively before it came out? It's two points more than a Kwing. For those two points you get an extra hull and agility as well as a far superior dial, not to mention much better upgrade options.

And lose access to TLTs and Sabine's Bombs. The two options which gave K-Wing lists life so far. Besides naturally that K-Wing has Slam ;-)

If you want a comparison, compare it to the new YT-1300 generic with a punishing one generic. Though the YT most likely still sucks.

Trickshot, K4 Droid, Extra Munitions, Plasma Torps, Chips - 33 points.

Cool. You're kinda predictable in the way you move if you want to get your target locks (and you do) and you'll only get to fire your torpedoes on the 2nd round - and that's assuming that whatever you chose to lock doesn't move out of arc or into R1. As I said earlier, you'll probably lose your first jumpmaster before it gets to fire it's first torpedo and aces will run rings around you since they know who you've locked by the time they make their move. I suppose if you're really good at blocking you might win something with this. But by "something" I mean a game, not a tournament. The list has too many exploitable weaknesses to do well against majority of competitive lists out there. Still, give us a shout how you've done with it.

It's not going to be easy, but a skilled player can make it work IMHO. For the cost of one EM, one of them can be upgraded to Manaroo, which will make setting up a shot much easier, as she can pass the TL to whoever has a shot.

Also, with a TL+focus, their primary attacks are going to be much more reliable. Trickshot is there mostly because it's free and might be helpful sometimes.

I agree that Fantasy Flight Games aren't taking into account the biggest problems. I can't tell about Uboats since I never played with or against them, only heard they were really strong as meta game, which is why they nerfed Deadeye. But... what about Palpatine? For me, that card breaks the whole game, if it can't suffer any kind of nerf like be limited to a range instead of taking effect in the whole map, then it should be banned in tournaments at least. That upgrade alone is so strong that doesn't have anything that can counter it directly

So many incorrect statements here.

1. They are taking it into account, as the rebel regen and stress lists were what kept Palpatine in check, before the arrival of the Nerfmasters. Now those lists can be used again.

2. If Palpatine breaks the entire game for you, I'd hazard a guess and say that you've never played competitively at a high level/or simply don't know how to handle a Palp Aces list. The default kill order is weakest ace -> Shuttle -> toughest ace. If you can bum-rush with fast Attack 3+ ships it is Shuttle-> weakest ace -> toughest ace.

3. "That upgrade alone is so strong that doesn't have anything that can counter it directly" but that is the thing, it isn't strong alone, it takes the right combination of those remaining 71 points in order to click - how often do you see it in a TIE Swarm, with Bombers?. And the die mod is ONCE per turn, often forcing the Palp player to save it for defense, in which case it mechanically becomes an instant regenerating shield/hull (that, granted; can also deny certain triggers). Rebels have had regen in spades for ages AS WELL as strong control options and Turret ships. Now they're back again.

The devs will likely wait and see how the return of the Rebels will influence the game, before moving on to Palpatine/something else.

Actually, you're statements are kind of incorrect

Palpatine is an over-powered card. I'm surprised its even being debated here. Podcasts have discussed it. Articles have been written showing the math and the extreme meta-warping nature this card has. Pretty much every competitive-minded individual knows Palp is OP. I don't have links because I'm lazy, but Palp has been out for over a year and its pretty clearly a card that should be worth 16 or more points (no citation sorry, but I am kind of quoting MJ here). Nobody goes to a tournament and wins unless you have a direct answer in your list to deal with Palp Aces. To me, that is pretty clearly a case of meta-warping!

To spell it out since it seems not to be obvious: the problem with Palp is that it increases the jousting efficiency of a list way beyond what the game is designed to handle. For example, Soontir Fel with thrusters, stealth, tokens and palp becomes mathematically impossible to land any damage on with 4 ships possessing 3 attack dice guns, even with TL + F (okay, maybe not quite impossible, but close enough!). That is game breaking. It means, that a cat could control a Palp Aces list and fly straight at other jousting lists and win regardless of how good the other player is if they happen to be using some of the many, many ships in the game that simply do not possess the means to break through that staggering amount of damage mitigation.

And saying that you need to basically 'Learn to play' and kill Palp first is simply proof that he's a serious problem. How can you consider a ship to be balanced that is basically indestructible to normal fire as long as you have a card in play on some other ship that's still on the table? And its not just Fel that becomes redonkulous----X-7 Defenders are just as difficult to put damage through, and in a way, even worse, because they have much less in the way of 'hard-counters'.

The phantom pre-nerf was too powerful due to its gross positional superiority to other ships making it impossible for many ships to get in arc. The Torpedo Scouts were too powerful due to their gross damage output that many ships simply could not survive against, making PS 2 ships basically dead (except a Palp Shuttle, interestingly enough!). Palpatine provides damage mitigation at unlimited range and with no drawbacks that allows players to fly a ship such as Soontir like an idiot straight into arc of any number of enemy ships and be rewarded for this 'bad move' by allowing him to win a damage exchange by himself against an entire 100 point list! If that doesn't meet the criteria of 'broken', then I don't know what does.

And don't tell me there are counters to palp. That's not the issue. There's counters to everything (there were counters to pre-nerf phantoms and plenty of counters to deadeye scouts!). When a card makes large percentages of other ships non-viable in competitive play, REGARDLESS of whether its through a combo of other cards/abilities or not, does not matter. Its too strong, duh! Palpatine certainly does this, and it baffles me that others cannot understand this.

Having said all that, I do agree with your last point, Keffisch: FFG doesn't want to introduce too many nerfs/fixes at once. I'm sure the game designers have their eye on Palp and are considering what to do about it as we speak. But including a palp nerf in this latest FAQ update would have been too much. Whether one agrees or not, they chose to nerf scouts first instead of palp, but ultimately they will probably get around to nerfing Palp eventually. Frankly, if they don't, I will most likely run a Palp list at Worlds next year (I can't go this year....boohoo), because its so good, you'd almost be a fool not to take advantage of it (although palp counters will be out in droves, but I know what those are and I think I can deal with them...)

Anyway, hopefully I didn't come off sounding rude---I think you're a good player and probably a decent guy, but I am utterly baffled by your stance with regards to Palpatine!

1) So the reason Palpatine exist is to counter the regeneration the rebels have? I don't see that way. Your Aces not being hitted because of Palpatine while my shield gets depleted faster than it can regenerate isn't what I would call "ok".

No, but they counter aces naturally via Stressbots, Ion weapons and to an extent, TLTs.

2) What if Palpatine is on a turret that takes forever to kill like the Decimator? What if the Ace with the Decimator is a Soonthir Fel? Doesn't sound that easy now, eh? I see now I am not the only one who didn't played competitively, and you are right, I didn't yet. But I know the menace Palpatine can be. It is not that simple as you may think to deal with that Palp Aces.

Take forever to kill and Decimator in the same sentence?

If the ace with him is Soontir, you should know who to kill first..

It is actually super simple to deal with Palpatine, either you do, or you don't.

3) Again, what I said above, Palpatine is stronger than regenerating a single shield.

It was never a single shield. But I see your point.

What I did say however was that Rebels used to use both Regen AND Control. Now they are able to do that once more.

And saying that you need to basically 'Learn to play' and kill Palp first is simply proof that he's a serious problem. How can you consider a ship to be balanced that is basically indestructible to normal fire as long as you have a card in play on some other ship that's still on the table?

****, you're right.

We need to ban Biggs.

To spell it out since it seems not to be obvious: the problem with Palp is that it increases the jousting efficiency of a list way beyond what the game is designed to handle. For example, Soontir Fel with thrusters, stealth, tokens and palp becomes mathematically impossible to land any damage on with 4 ships possessing 3 attack dice guns, even with TL + F (okay, maybe not quite impossible, but close enough!).

I want to see that math, as I smell some mumbo-jumbo here. Besides, Soontis is 35 points - kill the remaining 65 points and you're good.

Palp is powerful, no doubt about it. But calling him OP is going overboard, as he can modify one die per turn and costs, effectively, at least almost a third of your list, and rides a ship which is legendary for its bad dial.

I didn't take the time to dig through this whole topic, but in response to the OP, I don't think it's necessarily bad for X-wing that a fix has been done outside of an expansion-pack.

Magic: The Gathering has a long history of banned, restricted and errata-ed cards yet is still going strong. These things are bound to happen if a game grows so big it's getting too costly to calculate all possible combo's.

Nerfs like this are to be expected and I expect more to come in future.

The main downside is that people have to memorize the FAQ/errata's in order to keep playing older prints. I don't know whether the errata-ed cards are going to be reprinted with the correct wording, but in MtG it was a nuisance that you'd have to check errata's, restriction and banned lists before playing a card on tournaments (and those of the current Meta).
MtG did reprint errata-ed cards with correct wording though, but most people still played the old ones.

As long as FFG reprints the errata-ed cards in future expansions (and reprints of existing expansions) and people check the current rules regarding the ships they intend to fly and upgrades they intend to use, it shouldn't be a problem (there are much less cards to keep track of compared to MtG anyway)

To spell it out since it seems not to be obvious: the problem with Palp is that it increases the jousting efficiency of a list way beyond what the game is designed to handle. For example, Soontir Fel with thrusters, stealth, tokens and palp becomes mathematically impossible to land any damage on with 4 ships possessing 3 attack dice guns, even with TL + F (okay, maybe not quite impossible, but close enough!).

I want to see that math, as I smell some mumbo-jumbo here. Besides, Soontis is 35 points - kill the remaining 65 points and you're good.

Palp is powerful, no doubt about it. But calling him OP is going overboard, as he can modify one die per turn and costs, effectively, at least almost a third of your list, and rides a ship which is legendary for its bad dial.

That is just wrong. Palp is OP (and imperial aces in general to some degree), because he gives the list a jousting efficiency thats beyond anything else in the game. That means that unlike before, where you would win if you forced an ace list into a joust, basicaly outplaying them, you now 100% lose in that situation unless you were Torpscout (dead), or have a strong stress controll element paired with high PS.

Just think about how ridiciulous that is. And ace list jousts BBBBZ, is more efficient and therefor wins! Major Juggler has some pretty rough numbers concerning this if you want to look it up.

Palpatine has to cost kinda 30 points....yes, it is OP as well.

I want to see that math, as I smell some mumbo-jumbo here. Besides, Soontis is 35 points - kill the remaining 65 points and you're good.

very, very simplistic version (not especially statistical):

• Soontir with a stealth device rolls 4 green dice (barring range 3, where the 5th die and autothrusters makes shooting at him a joke, but where 3 unmodified red dice also makes his return fire ignorable to a greater or lesser extent).
• 4 unmodified green dice nets 1.5 evades on average each time they're rolled
• We have 4 'once-per-turn' abilities at our disposal - 2 focus tokens, an evade token, and palpatine
• each one adds, on average, one evade to the roll, giving us 2.5 evades (give or take). Which means one of these can be expended against each incoming attack if we've got 4 attackers.
• A three-dice attack with focus nets less than 2.5 hits on average - meaning that on average each attack misses. The odds of four attacks in a row missing are obviously much worse, but that still requires you to get shots with all four attackers. Generally it's going to require you to get three hits with two or more ships
• At least two of the 'once per turn' boosts are not dice-dependent - Soontir can 'conjure' 2 evades from a completely blank roll, so you've got decent insurance against random variation in rolls.

This is not saying "OMG Soontir/Palp OP" - I agree; if it's a decimator, for example, four T-70s should be able to ventilate it pretty fast. Equally, the above assessent doesn't allow for range 1 shots, or for the attackers being something like Ruthless Freelancers and Palob Godahli with Zuckuss and 4-LOM on board to suppress those tokens. But just trying to shoot at Soontir even at range 2 is kind of wasting your time with 3-4 'generic' fighters. So you either close the range and block, or go for the Emperor's transport (or the other ace)

And saying that you need to basically 'Learn to play' and kill Palp first is simply proof that he's a serious problem. How can you consider a ship to be balanced that is basically indestructible to normal fire as long as you have a card in play on some other ship that's still on the table?

****, you're right.

We need to ban Biggs.

Umm, maybe you didn't read the FAQ? Biggs has been nerfed!

I agree that Fantasy Flight Games aren't taking into account the biggest problems. I can't tell about Uboats since I never played with or against them, only heard they were really strong as meta game, which is why they nerfed Deadeye. But... what about Palpatine? For me, that card breaks the whole game, if it can't suffer any kind of nerf like be limited to a range instead of taking effect in the whole map, then it should be banned in tournaments at least. That upgrade alone is so strong that doesn't have anything that can counter it directly

So many incorrect statements here.

1. They are taking it into account, as the rebel regen and stress lists were what kept Palpatine in check, before the arrival of the Nerfmasters. Now those lists can be used again.

2. If Palpatine breaks the entire game for you, I'd hazard a guess and say that you've never played competitively at a high level/or simply don't know how to handle a Palp Aces list. The default kill order is weakest ace -> Shuttle -> toughest ace. If you can bum-rush with fast Attack 3+ ships it is Shuttle-> weakest ace -> toughest ace.

3. "That upgrade alone is so strong that doesn't have anything that can counter it directly" but that is the thing, it isn't strong alone, it takes the right combination of those remaining 71 points in order to click - how often do you see it in a TIE Swarm, with Bombers?. And the die mod is ONCE per turn, often forcing the Palp player to save it for defense, in which case it mechanically becomes an instant regenerating shield/hull (that, granted; can also deny certain triggers). Rebels have had regen in spades for ages AS WELL as strong control options and Turret ships. Now they're back again.

The devs will likely wait and see how the return of the Rebels will influence the game, before moving on to Palpatine/something else.

Actually, you're statements are kind of incorrect

Palpatine is an over-powered card. I'm surprised its even being debated here. Podcasts have discussed it. Articles have been written showing the math and the extreme meta-warping nature this card has. Pretty much every competitive-minded individual knows Palp is OP. I don't have links because I'm lazy, but Palp has been out for over a year and its pretty clearly a card that should be worth 16 or more points (no citation sorry, but I am kind of quoting MJ here). Nobody goes to a tournament and wins unless you have a direct answer in your list to deal with Palp Aces. To me, that is pretty clearly a case of meta-warping!

To spell it out since it seems not to be obvious: the problem with Palp is that it increases the jousting efficiency of a list way beyond what the game is designed to handle. For example, Soontir Fel with thrusters, stealth, tokens and palp becomes mathematically impossible to land any damage on with 4 ships possessing 3 attack dice guns, even with TL + F (okay, maybe not quite impossible, but close enough!). That is game breaking. It means, that a cat could control a Palp Aces list and fly straight at other jousting lists and win regardless of how good the other player is if they happen to be using some of the many, many ships in the game that simply do not possess the means to break through that staggering amount of damage mitigation.

And saying that you need to basically 'Learn to play' and kill Palp first is simply proof that he's a serious problem. How can you consider a ship to be balanced that is basically indestructible to normal fire as long as you have a card in play on some other ship that's still on the table? And its not just Fel that becomes redonkulous----X-7 Defenders are just as difficult to put damage through, and in a way, even worse, because they have much less in the way of 'hard-counters'.

The phantom pre-nerf was too powerful due to its gross positional superiority to other ships making it impossible for many ships to get in arc. The Torpedo Scouts were too powerful due to their gross damage output that many ships simply could not survive against, making PS 2 ships basically dead (except a Palp Shuttle, interestingly enough!). Palpatine provides damage mitigation at unlimited range and with no drawbacks that allows players to fly a ship such as Soontir like an idiot straight into arc of any number of enemy ships and be rewarded for this 'bad move' by allowing him to win a damage exchange by himself against an entire 100 point list! If that doesn't meet the criteria of 'broken', then I don't know what does.

And don't tell me there are counters to palp. That's not the issue. There's counters to everything (there were counters to pre-nerf phantoms and plenty of counters to deadeye scouts!). When a card makes large percentages of other ships non-viable in competitive play, REGARDLESS of whether its through a combo of other cards/abilities or not, does not matter. Its too strong, duh! Palpatine certainly does this, and it baffles me that others cannot understand this.

Having said all that, I do agree with your last point, Keffisch: FFG doesn't want to introduce too many nerfs/fixes at once. I'm sure the game designers have their eye on Palp and are considering what to do about it as we speak. But including a palp nerf in this latest FAQ update would have been too much. Whether one agrees or not, they chose to nerf scouts first instead of palp, but ultimately they will probably get around to nerfing Palp eventually. Frankly, if they don't, I will most likely run a Palp list at Worlds next year (I can't go this year....boohoo), because its so good, you'd almost be a fool not to take advantage of it (although palp counters will be out in droves, but I know what those are and I think I can deal with them...)

Anyway, hopefully I didn't come off sounding rude---I think you're a good player and probably a decent guy, but I am utterly baffled by your stance with regards to Palpatine!

I am in the camp that Manaroo is actually worse than Palpatine. Mindlink Manaroo is actually influencing more ships for bigger gains than Palp is and is almost the same cost (Cheapest Palp is 29, mindlink/k4 Manaroo is 31).

Palp can change a single dice in a turn, Manaroo can provide multiple ships with a focus via mindlink and then in the combat phase had out a focus and target lock to a ship that needs it and reacquire a focus via mindlink. Despite all that, Manaroo has a better dial, better action economy, is harder to kill and is actually useful in a fight.

A lot of people reference Soontir when making their case for Palp but Soontir is actually the extreme example, he was ALWAYS difficult to hit with his 3 to 4 evade, double focus an evade token combo, then he got Autothrusters, then he got Palp but people seem to forget that is essentially a 64 point defence, which you are attacking at its absolute prime so why shouldn't it survive your 23 point X wing? Now if Soontir was denied any of those, his reliance on that 29 point upgrade becomes greater. Would be interested to know what the maths is on hitting:

Three dice, focus attack, one re-roll against:

Soontir with no actions due to stress or bumped and only Palp and autothrusters? (So essentially 61 point Soontir defence)

Soontir with no actions due to stress or bumped and only Palp (59 point Soontir defence)

Take forever to kill and Decimator in the same sentence?

As an Ace Decimator Pilot, I see this kind of super bizarre mentality a lot.

Do people not know how to fly Decimators where you are? Or are they like, only 43pt vehicles for carrying around Vader, so they self implode? Do the Decimator pilots on your scene only try to joust TIE Swarms with them head on? 'Cause my opponents spend entire games trying to catch this supremely speedy monster around the map, only to have my ace sneak up behind them.

A well flown Decimator can take a long, long time to kill, even if it's not Kenkirk, and even without Ysanne in a crew slot.

Why are people still so sour about Palpatine? It's once a turn and requires a minimum 29pt investment. It's powerful, but has to be used carefully and at the right time, and does not remotely compare with triple JumpMasters or the old Phantom in terms of effect on the overall game.

The 'counter' is to kill him, or to focus fire on one of his non-Fel friends such that he can't save them from all of the damage.

If it's so easy to counter how come Palp Aces are probably the most successful list archetype in tournaments this year?

Palpatine is the card that started the crazy damage race in X-wing. Before him 3 dice attacks used to be good. It has had an effect of the same magnitude on the game, just in a bit more subtle ways.

And saying that you need to basically 'Learn to play' and kill Palp first is simply proof that he's a serious problem. How can you consider a ship to be balanced that is basically indestructible to normal fire as long as you have a card in play on some other ship that's still on the table?

****, you're right.

We need to ban Biggs.

Umm, maybe you didn't read the FAQ? Biggs has been nerfed!

Yeah, against some forms of ordinance fire.

He still makes a ship basically invulnerable to normal fire until he's removed from the table, which was the previous posters rational for something being overpowered.

It's mostly tongue in cheek, anyways, being that I think both Palp and Biggs should be knocked out of normal play.

Solution to killing Palp aces.

Block them.

Simple as that. No tokens means no modifying (except Palp). A blocked ace is a dead ace.

I am in the camp that Manaroo is actually worse than Palpatine. Mindlink Manaroo is actually influencing more ships for bigger gains than Palp is and is almost the same cost (Cheapest Palp is 29, mindlink/k4 Manaroo is 31).

Palp can change a single dice in a turn, Manaroo can provide multiple ships with a focus via mindlink and then in the combat phase had out a focus and target lock to a ship that needs it and reacquire a focus via mindlink. Despite all that, Manaroo has a better dial, better action economy, is harder to kill and is actually useful in a fight.

A lot of people reference Soontir when making their case for Palp but Soontir is actually the extreme example, he was ALWAYS difficult to hit with his 3 to 4 evade, double focus an evade token combo, then he got Autothrusters, then he got Palp but people seem to forget that is essentially a 64 point defence, which you are attacking at its absolute prime so why shouldn't it survive your 23 point X wing? Now if Soontir was denied any of those, his reliance on that 29 point upgrade becomes greater. Would be interested to know what the maths is on hitting:

Three dice, focus attack, one re-roll against:

Soontir with no actions due to stress or bumped and only Palp and autothrusters? (So essentially 61 point Soontir defence)

Soontir with no actions due to stress or bumped and only Palp (59 point Soontir defence)

I'm not going to argue with you about Manaroo. I don't think she's 'broken' like Palp is (because the ships she 'protects' cannot generate the same wall of impenetrable defense that imperial ships can, and its the combination of these effects that breaks the game). Besides, Alex Davy is on record stating that they were maybe too aggressive in costing the Jumpmaster. So yes, all of the jump master pilots are about 1 or 2 points cheaper than they should be (by the designer's own admission). This from an interview he did a while back on a podcast. But we've just had a jumpmaster nerf, and its unlikely we'll see another one unless Dengaroo goes on to dominate the competitive scene even more than torpedo scouts did, but uncertain, the future is, and all that.

But you are obviously not reading very carefully. I did not say 'a 23 point x-wing' should be able to hurt soontir. I said 100 points of a list should very well be able to hurt Soontir in a straight up joust! And clearly palpatine makes that next to impossible. I don't have the math, but Magnus Grendel made a stab at it above, and if you really, really can't see how Palp makes such a difference, you can test it. Just break out your own dice or use VASSAL's and roll it. Then you will see for yourself. At range 3 its very much impossible. At range 2, its still extremely unlikely to land a single damage with 4 guns each throwing 3 dice with a focus token.

And it doesn't matter how many points the combo costs. It could be 100 points and it would still be broken because if 100 points of firepower is unable to deal any damage to 100 points of defence, then it breaks the game. This is why the game uses 'unbalanced' dice---the reds have a slightly better chance of dealing damage compared to mitigation on the greens. I should think the reasons for that are obvious...

Solution to killing Palp aces.

Block them.

Simple as that. No tokens means no modifying (except Palp). A blocked ace is a dead ace.

Yup, if you block them then they only have 3 raw green dice, and autothrusters, and Palp to defend, no way to survive. Simple as that.

Oh, but if you have them in arc and they're an x7 defender, then it's just 3 green dice, an evade token, 6HP and Palp. Yup, they're dead meat for sure!

...oh, wait...

Blocking is a super valid strategy, but it's not like once you block an Imperial Ace it explodes. You're probably gonna have to pull that trick off at least twice and then not have your dice crap out on you.

I agree that palp aces is a very strong list. I have played against it numerous times in tournaments. I admit that I have not had the time to read through the entire list of posts thoroughly. I would like to point out though that token dependent aces have always had a hard counter built into the base rules: blocking.

If you block soontir (which is not impossible since he's always doing greens) and you're taking shots within range 3 he is literally only depending on palpatine to survive. If you have more than a single shot at him then he's pretty much screwed. That's the way you beat him before the emperor, that's still the way that any list can beat him.

I started playing back in wave 3, and I would say that up until the emperor came out in the raider it was considered stupidly risky to have two expensive aces in a list. Rebels have won worlds the majority of times since this game started because their faction identity is very conducive to tournament play (turrets, having shields for defense which is always reliable, and regen abilities). Imperials have ways had the super aces, which are awesome, but not good for tournament play in the long run (green dice fail often enough over a long period of play that you will have enough games where you get 1 shotted and either lose or wreck your MoV). The Emperor, I think, was meant to boost the ability of super aces to appear on top tables by giving them a fallback option when their dice inevitably failed them.

Before the emperor the only 'super ace' to make it to the final round was the pre-nerf phantom. Like it not the emperor allows a central part of the Imperial faction ID to be competitive at the highest levels. I'm going to be curious to see how the meta shakes out without U-boats and if the rebels can bring the emperor back under control.

​Might be a little off topic but if I were to redesign the palpster, I would have him deal 1 damage to the ship he is on every time he alters a die roll. It would fit in with the Vader crew's theme of 'the darkside is ultimately self destructive' and it would put a hard limit on the number of times you could do it.

​Might be a little off topic but if I were to redesign the palpster, I would have him deal 1 damage to the ship he is on every time he alters a die roll. It would fit in with the Vader crew's theme of 'the darkside is ultimately self destructive' and it would put a hard limit on the number of times you could do it.

For 2 points and a single slot. And then it isn't the right feeling. At the end he is the EMPEROR! And next you could ask yourself is wtf is the emperor involved in such a meaningless little dogfight? Shouldn't he be on Coruscant or at least in a Super Stardestroyer?

tl;dr: He's fine like he is.

I am a little disappointed that U-boats disappear right before the Hot-Pants Co-Pilot from HotR drops. Would be a great counter. to torp-scouts. Anything that attacks before PS3 would be guaranteed to strip a focus token and keep the torps in the tubes.

I am a little disappointed that U-boats disappear right before the Hot-Pants Co-Pilot from HotR drops. Would be a great counter. to torp-scouts. Anything that attacks before PS3 would be guaranteed to strip a focus token and keep the torps in the tubes.

But most of those boats were using Overloaded Agromech, or whatever, so they'd have just taken a stress to retain the focus token. It would have been a valid tool because then in order to have another focus to pair with their Plasma Torps, they'd have to be double stressed, but it would not have harmed their alpha strike capability.