What about the new ships? Do you think that ARCs might work against Dengaroo? What about the new T-70s from the Heroes expansion? What about Rey or the Falcon in general?
ARCs do work well against them, as long as they have a Biggs nursing them. Biggs can soak some damage in the initial pass, and Tailgunner works wonders when all Dengar can roll in defence is 1 green.
In addition, Zuckuss is not so useful against low agility ships like ARCS and if you bring a stressmule you can shut down Manaroo if she comes in arc
How to beat Dengaroo
Don't shoot at him from his front arc unless doing so will yield more expected damage to him than to you. That's pretty much it. If you're shooting a 3 dice attack on him from the front when he can spit a 4 dice attack back at one of your ships, you're doing it wrong.
Deathfire is great! His Homing Missiles make him a real threat, and in the match versus Dengaroo his LRS can be amusing - take your first lock on Manaroo and then force your opponent to squirm when combat arrives and they face the prospect of throwing a lock for Vessery onto Dengar.
Plus, Connors are ruthless versus any lisy that relies on 1 or 2 key ships. Hit Dengar and he'll coast out of position while you hammer Manaroo, and if you're fortunate enough to Connor Manaroo she'll practically be dead already.
I still like Tomax, but I've come to love Deathfire and he's a worthy Dengar soft counter.
Then he activates Countermeasures and your ordnance doesn't activate
People are telling that corran/biggs/wes are a good counter for the dengaroo but as someone who has played that list for a long time I can say that's not really true.
Sure, you can prey on unexperienced players, but if the dengaroo knows his list you still need to waste a good shootog turn in order to have him trigger countermeasures and glitter and it's far than a given that you'll manage to get another good engagement against a pwt ship when you are flying 2 Xs and an E.
Not to mention that dengar often carries plasma torpedo who will be kept for Wes or even worse corran.
With those ships you also need lot of setup in order to catch manaroo and while you can stress her, nothing forces your opponent to use ptl every turn and once again you are stuck having to do koiograns against pwt ships which makes both your offense and defense way less efficient.
In fact, I'd say that corran/biggs/braylen might be better in the matchup. Sure u lose Wes removing tokens, but you gain durability AND a more reliable way to double stress manaroo
The Dengaroo lists run at a flat 100, right? No bid?
I wonder how well a PTL/Baffles Quickdraw would work against Dengaroo. You're putting out damage before Manaroo passes her tokens to Dengar, can BR out of arc, and if he focuses fire on Quickdraw you've got a lot of other ships to play with...
I mean, yeah, Palp Defenders seems like a sure thing and is highly reliable, but lately I've had an itch for 4-ship lists, not 3-ship.
Something like:
29 Omicron Group Pilot w/ Palpatine
33 Quickdraw w/ Baffles, PTL
23 Zeta Leader w/ Predator
14 Wampa
99
Has a lot of different threats, and can push damage through - though Wampa's more valuable against Soontir and Carnor. Though it lacks an endgame closer; ZL's okay at it, but OL or Inqy is better.
What i don't get is why they nerfed U-Boats but left Dengaroo completely unaffected. After all it produced better results than U-Boats lately...
If they were simply nerfing by results Palpatine would probably be at the top of the list by a lot since Palp lists do win more than anything else in the game currently. Fortunately FFG is not that dumb.
Back to the OP, I think there are mainly 2 categories of counters to Dengaroo:
-Fast ships that can catch Manaroo (Defenders, Brobots, Dash/Falcon with EU, Shadow Caster with EU etc.)
-Ships with high number of attack dice (HLCs, Ghosts but also 3 dice primaries that can get into range 1 reliably) Dengar is great at absorbing 1-2 hits per attack. Once you start sending 3-4 hits his way, he starts to melt.
It also help if you run beefy (high HP) instead of low hp green dice reliant ships.
The Dengaroo lists run at a flat 100, right? No bid?
Nope. They typically sit at 97 to 99.
Anything that can reduce agility is strong against Dengaroo. He's very good at maxing his defense dice; remove a die and he ain't so good.
Edited by ForceMHaving played the matchup a fair bit, it's closer to 80-20. And that's me being generous. Dengaroo needs bizarre dice variance and severe mistakes from the Defender player before he's even got a chance.If you ask me it's rather 50/50 than a hard counter.
You deploy after Mana, so cutting off escape avenues is almost trivial. And she's not that fast in a straight line, particularly while clearing stress. Unless she has Unhinged, but that means no Painbot and you have even more time to hunt her down. And even if she gives you the slip for a turn it hardly matters; just come about and lay another trap while Dengar tries in vain to do meaningful damage.
What i don't get is why they nerfed U-Boats but left Dengaroo completely unaffected. After all it produced better results than U-Boats lately...
If they were simply nerfing by results Palpatine would probably be at the top of the list by a lot since Palp lists do win more than anything else in the game currently. Fortunately FFG is not that dumb.
Back to the OP, I think there are mainly 2 categories of counters to Dengaroo:
-Fast ships that can catch Manaroo (Defenders, Brobots, Dash/Falcon with EU, Shadow Caster with EU etc.)
-Ships with high number of attack dice (HLCs, Ghosts but also 3 dice primaries that can get into range 1 reliably) Dengar is great at absorbing 1-2 hits per attack. Once you start sending 3-4 hits his way, he starts to melt.
It also help if you run beefy (high HP) instead of low hp green dice reliant ships.
I totally agree with your analysis, but i still am looking for an explanation how they chose what to nerf and what not here...
What i don't get is why they nerfed U-Boats but left Dengaroo completely unaffected. After all it produced better results than U-Boats lately...
If they were simply nerfing by results Palpatine would probably be at the top of the list by a lot since Palp lists do win more than anything else in the game currently. Fortunately FFG is not that dumb.
Back to the OP, I think there are mainly 2 categories of counters to Dengaroo:
-Fast ships that can catch Manaroo (Defenders, Brobots, Dash/Falcon with EU, Shadow Caster with EU etc.)
-Ships with high number of attack dice (HLCs, Ghosts but also 3 dice primaries that can get into range 1 reliably) Dengar is great at absorbing 1-2 hits per attack. Once you start sending 3-4 hits his way, he starts to melt.
It also help if you run beefy (high HP) instead of low hp green dice reliant ships.
I totally agree with your analysis, but i still am looking for an explanation how they chose what to nerf and what not here...
Playtesting, lots and lots of playtesting, over months and months.
I think they've hit the nail on the head. What is able to hold back Dengaroo and Palp Aces are rebel regen builds, and those melted to the overly strong U-Boat alpha strike. With the overly strong U-Boat alpha strike gone, rebels are back, and thus Dengaroo and Palp Aces have an opponent again. The meta is wide open right now.
I totally agree with your analysis, but i still am looking for an explanation how they chose what to nerf and what not here...If they were simply nerfing by results Palpatine would probably be at the top of the list by a lot since Palp lists do win more than anything else in the game currently. Fortunately FFG is not that dumb.What i don't get is why they nerfed U-Boats but left Dengaroo completely unaffected. After all it produced better results than U-Boats lately...
Back to the OP, I think there are mainly 2 categories of counters to Dengaroo:
-Fast ships that can catch Manaroo (Defenders, Brobots, Dash/Falcon with EU, Shadow Caster with EU etc.)
-Ships with high number of attack dice (HLCs, Ghosts but also 3 dice primaries that can get into range 1 reliably) Dengar is great at absorbing 1-2 hits per attack. Once you start sending 3-4 hits his way, he starts to melt.
It also help if you run beefy (high HP) instead of low hp green dice reliant ships.
Playtesting, lots and lots of playtesting, over months and months.
I think they've hit the nail on the head. What is able to hold back Dengaroo and Palp Aces are rebel regen builds, and those melted to the overly strong U-Boat alpha strike. With the overly strong U-Boat alpha strike gone, rebels are back, and thus Dengaroo and Palp Aces have an opponent again. The meta is wide open right now.
Dash can do it, Falcons have some problems. Regen lists are also a bit slow against Dengaroo, and Dengar can pretty much outdamage these lists. Not sure how Rey would fare.
Defenders are a very solid choice against it. Traditional more flimsy Palpmobile lists will struggle as Dengar can punch through stealth devices pretty easily, and the Painbot is like russian roulette for Soontir.
I start to think Dengaroo is allowed to stay for that reason, it's pretty good against traditional Palpmobile. Like that we have a Stone/Paper/Scissor situation, which is ideal for a game like X-Wing.
Edited by ForceMPlaytesting, lots and lots of playtesting, over months and months.
I think they've hit the nail on the head. What is able to hold back Dengaroo and Palp Aces are rebel regen builds, and those melted to the overly strong U-Boat alpha strike. With the overly strong U-Boat alpha strike gone, rebels are back, and thus Dengaroo and Palp Aces have an opponent again. The meta is wide open right now.
Ha, ha! Naivety!
No, the real reason they haven't nerfed Dengaroo or Palp aces is they just haven't gotten around to it yet. Plus they probably want to wait and see what the effect of their 'bomb' of a FAQ has on the meta before they do anything more.
I disagree totally with your assessment. While rebels are certainly in better shape without 'u-boats', they are no more of an 'opponent' for palp aces or dengaroo than they were before.
Edited by blade_mercurialWhat i don't get is why they nerfed U-Boats but left Dengaroo completely unaffected. After all it produced better results than U-Boats lately...
If they were simply nerfing by results Palpatine would probably be at the top of the list by a lot since Palp lists do win more than anything else in the game currently. Fortunately FFG is not that dumb.
Back to the OP, I think there are mainly 2 categories of counters to Dengaroo:
-Fast ships that can catch Manaroo (Defenders, Brobots, Dash/Falcon with EU, Shadow Caster with EU etc.)
-Ships with high number of attack dice (HLCs, Ghosts but also 3 dice primaries that can get into range 1 reliably) Dengar is great at absorbing 1-2 hits per attack. Once you start sending 3-4 hits his way, he starts to melt.
It also help if you run beefy (high HP) instead of low hp green dice reliant ships.
I totally agree with your analysis, but i still am looking for an explanation how they chose what to nerf and what not here...
Playtesting, lots and lots of playtesting, over months and months.
I'd like to believe that's not the case and playtesters didn't know about 'no more u-boats' months before anyone else, because if they did, it's worrisome.
I disagree totally with your assessment. While rebels are certainly in better shape without 'u-boats', they are no more of an 'opponent' for palp aces or dengaroo than they were before.
It is not that Rebels have suddenly become better vs Palp-Aces or Dengaroo. The problem was that the spike damage that a U-boat alpha-strike could generate basically invalidated Regen lists leaving Rebels with an extremely limited set of options in open tournament play. Palp-Aces tend not to be particularly high on damage which is why Regen works well against them. Palp-Aces struggle to dish out damage fast enough to the Rebels before they can regenerate it. This gives the Rebels time to wipe out the Palp Mobile or keep prodding Soontir until his luck runs out and his SD pops.
With U-boats on the scene, the only lists that were doing well were things like Ghost-Dash and Wes/Biggs/Corran which relied on a tricky combination of control, target splitting and double-tapping to take down opponents. Now Rebels can bring more varied lists without worry that they will auto-lose to Triple U-Boats. That is why the meta has opened up somewhat.
There is a Mike krahulic /penny arcade comic for EXACTLY this topic...and for two days now I just...can't... seem...to..find...it.
AARRGH!
Rebel Regen and Stress lists were giving Palp Aces a serious run for their money way before U-Boats came out. This all only went sour when U-Boats came up and Rebels hardly had anything to beat them. So they disappeared from competition, leaving Palp Aces unopposed (by Rebels at least)
Okay we have had some imperial adds to Palp Aces since then, like Defenders for example, but i think that now with U-Boats gone pretty much, Rebel Regen will come back in force and pose some serious trouble to Imp Aces.
Because Palp Aces in most iterations are lists with a low damage output, so they will have a hard time getting through shield regen while Rebels just hunt the shuttle or stress/block and kill some ace eventually...
Edit: Just to say it, i have always been a stout defender of rebel tactics on this forums. A lot of people were calling Regen, Stressbot and TLT lists OP after last years worlds, and some greeted U-Boats as ther saviors when they came out. This was of course total nonsense because we had a diverse meta back then and we will hopefully now have it again after months of J5K bull...
I think people complaining about Regen and Stressbot just ignored the fact that Rebels just lack the ships to play the same style as Empire. They don't have a 3 agility 3 attack ship with exception of the very expensive E-Wing, so they just can't field these aces en masse like Empire does... they just need other mechanics to compensate this and they thankfully had them!
But this also means i really think that Palp Aces in a fine spot right now. They will rack up some more tournament wins, but i find no reason they shouldn't as Rebels and Scum will also get their fair share. We will see if the meta is back inbalance but right now i think Rebels got a very viable ship with The ARC, the Fang also seems solid, but the imperial ship and the Shadow Caster seem not so great. So the future is very promising!
Edited by ForceMTHATS IT!
Frankly, I wasn't too sold on the new TIE until I realized that Quickdraw+Baffles+Rage/PTL vomits damage. Rage, especially - getting rerolls on 3 dice for both shots AND a Focus token is amazing. It's like Redline+FCS+Cluster Missiles, except that it goes on PS9! AND it's cheaper!
Quickdraw forces profitable trades and target priority, because they HAVE to focus fire on it, but at one shot during the activation phase and one during the combat phase, it will get its damage out - and meantime, the rest of your list is also unmolested. At only 5 HP behind two dice, it's odd-on to die to 8 dice with some modifications, but QD's motto is "Do you wanna live forever?!" as he charges forward.
I think that Palpaces with QD as the offensive ace, Soontir as a defensive ace, and actually being willing to commit the shuttle to hunting Manaroo will make the Dengaroo game not hard. One thing I hate seeing is people flying around with the shuttle on their side of the table - that's a 3-dice attack being wasted.
31 Quickdraw - Rage, Baffles, Title
35 Soontir - PTL, Title, Autothrusters, Stealth Device
34 OGP - Palpatine, Baffles, Engine Upgrade
Turning the whale into a ship that can actually move is pretty sly. Nothing like taking a 0 Movement, dropping the Stress with Ebaffles, and then TL'ing a ship that thought it could move behind you...
Well, I don't like Quickdraw as i don't like autodestructive ships and upgrades. They seldom pay off, but in this case it could be worthwile as you pay less than 1/3 of your list for it.
I would however better see him matched with other offensive aces instead of a Palpmobile. Just personal preference i guess, but if i already have an all offensive ship like this, why not back it up with other ones like /D Defenders or Phantoms. The battle plan is to just outdamage the opponent, not outlast him as with Palpmobile.
Well, I don't like Quickdraw as i don't like autodestructive ships and upgrades. They seldom pay off, but in this case it could be worthwile as you pay less than 1/3 of your list for it.
I would however better see him matched with other offensive aces instead of a Palpmobile. Just personal preference i guess, but if i already have an all offensive ship like this, why not back it up with other ones like /D Defenders or Phantoms. The battle plan is to just outdamage the opponent, not outlast him as with Palpmobile.
Agree 100%
You could lay down some serious hurt with this "fun list".
This could work:
Torkhil Mux (24)
HWK-290 (19), Dorsal Turret (3), Outlaw Tech (2)
Binayre Pirate (12) x 2
Ketsu Onyo (51)
Lancer-class Pursuit Craft (38), Veteran Instincts (1), K4 Security Droid (3), Glitterstim (2), Glitterstim (2), Shadow Caster (3), Gyroscopic Targeting (2)
Go against dengar with all you got, agressive movements, give Dengar PS 0, if you manage to start the combat phase with ketsu at range 1 of dengar and in your main and aux arc, with the K4 Lock dengar, make evade action and spend glitterstim, so with the abilitie and the impact from Ketsu, Dengar will have zero agility when torkix and the 2 zs finish him. If you are not too unlucky with dices dengar could die in the first round of combat, or end it severely damaged. With Dengar destroyed, Manaroo can´t do anything.
Well, I don't like Quickdraw as i don't like autodestructive ships and upgrades. They seldom pay off, but in this case it could be worthwile as you pay less than 1/3 of your list for it.
I would however better see him matched with other offensive aces instead of a Palpmobile. Just personal preference i guess, but if i already have an all offensive ship like this, why not back it up with other ones like /D Defenders or Phantoms. The battle plan is to just outdamage the opponent, not outlast him as with Palpmobile.
It's strange (to me) as a veteran wargamer that the idea of 'profitable piece trades' hasn't taken hold in X-Wing. If you lose a piece but destroy or cripple a piece of theirs that is far higher value, then you're ahead. There are some outliers, like Biggs or Bumpmaster, but for the most part players seem hyperfocused on trying not to lose pieces at all rather than admitting, "Hey, I'm going to lose SOMETHING. Might as well control what that loss is with a profitable trade and then move on from there."
Wonder if I should make a thread about it?
Though I do admit that my own plan with QD is to pair her with OmegaL, ZetaL, and either a cheap blocker or Backstabber, depending on if I can borrow Rage or if I put PTL on QD instead. Four ships, only one of which does not have a 3-dice main, seems like a better list to me personally - but I'm a bit focused on 4-ship lists myself.
Edited by iamfanboy
Well, I don't like Quickdraw as i don't like autodestructive ships and upgrades. They seldom pay off, but in this case it could be worthwile as you pay less than 1/3 of your list for it.
I would however better see him matched with other offensive aces instead of a Palpmobile. Just personal preference i guess, but if i already have an all offensive ship like this, why not back it up with other ones like /D Defenders or Phantoms. The battle plan is to just outdamage the opponent, not outlast him as with Palpmobile.
It's strange (to me) as a veteran wargamer that the idea of 'profitable piece trades' hasn't taken hold in X-Wing. If you lose a piece but destroy or cripple a piece of theirs that is far higher value, then you're ahead. There are some outliers, like Biggs or Bumpmaster, but for the most part players seem hyperfocused on trying not to lose pieces at all rather than admitting, "Hey, I'm going to lose SOMETHING. Might as well control what that loss is with a profitable trade and then move on from there."
Wonder if I should make a thread about it?
Though I do admit that my own plan with QD is to pair her with OmegaL, ZetaL, and either a cheap blocker or Backstabber, depending on if I can borrow Rage or if I put PTL on QD instead. Four ships, only one of which does not have a 3-dice main, seems like a better list to me personally - but I'm a bit focused on 4-ship lists myself.
Never encountered a TIE Swarm then?