1 hour ago, varthanna said:

I didn't see anyone mention the Australia regional.

WINNER - Jaren Foss IMPERIAL (100)
Carnor Jax TIE Interceptor (34) Push the Limit + Royal Guard TIE + Autothrusters + Hull Upgrade

Rear Admiral Chiraneau VT-49 Decimator (66) Predator + Darth Vader + Gunner + Kylo Ren + Dauntless + Engine Upgrade

Video: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/121507177

Thanks for posting this, will definitely give it a watch. Fantastic looking list

2 hours ago, ObiWonka said:

Haas anyone tried SLAMming all 3 K-Wings into the fortress? One of the ships won't be able to shoot if you can hit it with all 3 K's, then it's 3v1 on the other ship until they finally break formation. (Obviously Ketsu throws in a small wrinkle in that she can tractor one ship away to be shot.)

If they move away after you've slammed into them, what are your options next round? It seems like you'd be likely to fly off the board.

I think we have reached the point where FFG needs to step up and make sure fortressing isn't allowed anymore.

I don't blame players since it's the best way to play some matchups, but not moving from where you deployed your ships it's definetly not healthy for the game, especially when it involves a list best suited for final salvo.

Not manouvring at all then either resolving it with final salvo or by forcing your opponent to commit into a bad engagement isn't brilliant nor tactically compelling. It's just abusing an overlooked game mechanic.

A legal tactic used exactly twice in a regional final as a hard counter to a list that has few others and suddenly a bunch of people want it banned.

Put it on the list, BEHIND:

Multiple TLT'S

Unlimited range effects,

4 die primaries

and about 30 other things I cannot even think of.

56 minutes ago, Criwi Romed said:

If they move away after you've slammed into them, what are your options next round? It seems like you'd be likely to fly off the board.

Even if they're on the very edge, I think a 2-turn clears, and that's if you've hit them head-on.

2 hours ago, Goseki1 said:

Thanks for posting this, will definitely give it a watch. Fantastic looking list

I would also suggest going and looking at the game before that. 3 Bumpmasters Vs the RAC/Kylo match. It was also a brilliant display.

Do you have a link? Twitch is irritating to navigate on mobile. Cheers!

To bring two separate elements of this discussion together, I watched some of the Australian regional and noticed the RAC + Jax eventual champion fortressing at the beginning of one of his games. It was a temporary fortress for a few rounds, just to suss out where his opponent was going to go, but this is something I've seen being used more often. And now we've seen different/nuanced examples of fortressing tactics in multiple high-level events (from the G-1A player, who fortressed until he got the better of the initial engagement, to the Boba + Ketsu that fortressed for almost the entire game, to the "quick fortress" tactic I just described).

Honestly, all this puts me off a little bit. Part of the dynamism of this game is the turn 0 element and the idea that you're soft-locked into an engagement strategy by the intelligence (or lack thereof) of your deployment. That sense of having to move, having to engage, scrambling to correct non-ideal elements of the coming engagement as you detect them cropping up, of having to make decisions... that's what makes X-Wing games feel so much more urgent and walking-the-razor's-edge-y than other systems I've tried.

When one player abdicates the requirement/responsibility of making those decisions in order to put the onus on the other player and play reactively... I don't know, I don't really dig it. Part of it is the fact that both players are equally able to eat that forbidden fruit, and not doing so is simply reliant on a hazy ethics of personal responsibility. I don't like seeing contests where one side is willing to play dirty/take the easy way out and the other side is restricted by trying to play the game "correctly" or "honourably" or whatever. Those contests feel contaminated, and I can't help but wonder how the "honourable" side would fare in a do-over where they were aware of their opposition's willingness to play that way, and there was never that grey area pregame tender-footedness.

2 hours ago, Gibarian said:

To bring two separate elements of this discussion together, I watched some of the Australian regional and noticed the RAC + Jax eventual champion fortressing at the beginning of one of his games. It was a temporary fortress for a few rounds, just to suss out where his opponent was going to go, but this is something I've seen being used more often. And now we've seen different/nuanced examples of fortressing tactics in multiple high-level events (from the G-1A player, who fortressed until he got the better of the initial engagement, to the Boba + Ketsu that fortressed for almost the entire game, to the "quick fortress" tactic I just described).

Honestly, all this puts me off a little bit. Part of the dynamism of this game is the turn 0 element and the idea that you're soft-locked into an engagement strategy by the intelligence (or lack thereof) of your deployment. That sense of having to move, having to engage, scrambling to correct non-ideal elements of the coming engagement as you detect them cropping up, of having to make decisions... that's what makes X-Wing games feel so much more urgent and walking-the-razor's-edge-y than other systems I've tried.

When one player abdicates the requirement/responsibility of making those decisions in order to put the onus on the other player and play reactively... I don't know, I don't really dig it. Part of it is the fact that both players are equally able to eat that forbidden fruit, and not doing so is simply reliant on a hazy ethics of personal responsibility. I don't like seeing contests where one side is willing to play dirty/take the easy way out and the other side is restricted by trying to play the game "correctly" or "honourably" or whatever. Those contests feel contaminated, and I can't help but wonder how the "honourable" side would fare in a do-over where they were aware of their opposition's willingness to play that way, and there was never that grey area pregame tender-footedness.

I understand your frustration, but I think it comes down to game design - When one list is at a HUGE disadvantage against another list (particularly in the case of k-wings + bombs), you do what you can to neutralize it.

What you're seeing is the result of there being more "paper-rock-scissors," where you show up and realize "Welp! I basically lose." And in the cases you listed, fortressing vastly reduces that variance for the underdog.

Frustrating? Yeah - but I bet if you ask the fortressing player if they came to sit there and bump ships, they would have said "no," but just found themselves in that situation.

On one hand, I'd like to see a "penalty" in general for bumping (I think every time you bump, you roll and take a hit if it shows hit/crit, like anti-pursuit lasers); but on the other hand, it's there because sometimes you show up and the list you're facing has SUCH a particular advantage you have almost no chance of winning without it (I'm still particularly thinking bombs here).

Odense Regionals, Dragon's Lair, Denmark:

Winner: Nicolai Thomas Søby Sørensen

Colonel Vessery (35)
Swarm Leader (3)
TIE/x7 (-2)

Countess Ryad (34)
Push the Limit (3)
Twin Ion Engine Mk. II (1)
TIE/x7 (-2)

Delta Squadron Pilot (30)
TIE/x7 (-2)

Runner-up: Paul Bridge

Manaroo (27)
Attanni Mindlink (1)

Asajj Ventress (37)
Attanni Mindlink (1)
Latts Razzi (2)

Fenn Rau (28)
Attanni Mindlink (1)
Autothrusters (2)
Concord Dawn Protector (1)

The fortressing is another example of how finally making Ordnance viable is a bad thing, because the bomb lists are something a lot of lists struggle to engage with in any meaningful way. What we've seen since Wave 8 is that ordnance is only good enough to play when it's too good, because it usually means sacrificing a lot of other more conventional elements to make it work and you need a big payoff to make it worth abandoning them.

I know people wanted Torpedoes and Missiles and Bombs to be good for so long, but you've got to be careful what you wish for.

5 hours ago, Stay On The Leader said:

The fortressing is another example of...

...players finding an advantage which is outside the spirit of the game. It's silly and shows that bumping doesn't come with enough of a penalty. People may not like stuff like TLTs, PWTs, etc, but those are still within the spirit of the game...flying and shooting. I don't blame the players for implementing it (much), I blame the designers for not addressing it.

Eminently arguable that turrets are part of the spirit of the game, as FGD will doubtless shortly demonstrate.

I.e. the spirit of the game is ot out-think your opponent, such that you shoot him more and better than he shoots you. If he CAN'T shoot you without you being able to shoot him, you're not really flying in the spirit of the game...

The spirit of the game is not some predefined thing, it's emergent from its mechanics. The mechanics allow fortressing, so it's part of that spirit until they don't, IMO.

Plus, punishing bumping would be VERY difficult to do without also punishing furballs way too heavily, and they're definitely part of how the game should play.

Well

3 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

The spirit of the game is not some predefined thing, it's emergent from its mechanics. The mechanics allow fortressing, so it's part of that spirit until they don't, IMO.

Well, no...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_and_spirit_of_the_law

5 minutes ago, Stay On The Leader said:

Well

Well, no...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_and_spirit_of_the_law

The law and a game are not the same thing

Rules of law and rules of a game are very clearly analogous.

Not really. I basically contend that the mechanics of a game like x-wing are the only thing that really maters. The emergent complxities of the mechanics that might not have been intended by design are among the things that make x wing interesting for me.

If you define the spirit of the game as intense maneuvering and shooting then it's somewhat apparent that a triple kwing bomb list also ignores the spirit of the game since not much is farther from those things than performing 2 maneuvers before your opponent and dealing damage to them that they can't interact with. When a list can consistently win without firing a shot and with very little interactivity it seems weird to say 'hey you have to try to fly and shoot that list even though it barely plays the same game as you!'

Yeah, I mean, that's what bugs me about K wings. They take an awful lot out of the game when they can functionally ignore the shooting part of the game using either TLTs, bombs, or both.

Guys, please . X-wing is a game about starfighters maneuvering against one another in space combat. It's most definitely NOT about starfighters setting up next to each other and bumping one another for an hour while the enemy force approaches. It would look extremely silly if you put that in a movie and it's definitely not how the game was designed to play. It doesn't matter what you do or don't find interesting or even necessary balance-wise. It might be legal, but it's about as far removed from the spirit and fluff of the game as possible. In the long term if it proves successful and common, something will need to be done about it or the quality of the players' experience will suffer.

EDIT: As for the K-wings balance I kinda agree. I think the main problem is Sabine crew, which is simply OP but the fact initially didn't register due to the silliness of the u-boats. As soon as u-boats were all but eliminated, Sabine started to have an undesirable impact on the meta. For starters she has massively reduced the variety of imperial lists because defenders are pretty much the only imperial fighters kinda capable of surviving the K-wing onslaught. Bombs should never have been allowed to become a primary weapon, capable of winning games single handedly and the only thing right now that keeps them in check is a relatively high skill requirement to use them effectively. As support weapons they're fine. Deathfire rocks for example, and doesn't feel overpowered at all.

Eh. If you read bumping as literally crashing, sure.

Bumping is manoeuvring in 3d. Or just cutting engines and waiting. Either of which works perfectly fine in space.

And again, I've yet to see anyone actually propose an appropriate punishment for fortressing, let alone propose one that wouldn't also have a huge impact on furballs.

What do people suggest?

13 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

Eh. If you read bumping as literally crashing, sure.

Bumping is manoeuvring in 3d. Or just cutting engines and waiting. Either of which works perfectly fine in space.

And again, I've yet to see anyone actually propose an appropriate punishment for fortressing, let alone propose one that wouldn't also have a huge impact on furballs.

What do people suggest?

It's quite simple really. If 2 ships belonging to the same player keep overlapping each other for more than 2 turns in a row without changing their position, in round 3 and in each subsequent turn both get assigned a facedown damage card. That would allow temporary tactical fortressing but not stalling the entire game. The only potential problem would be taking note of the turn in which the ships started bumping but it's not a huge problem.

4 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

Eh. If you read bumping as literally crashing, sure.

Bumping is manoeuvring in 3d. Or just cutting engines and waiting. Either of which works perfectly fine in space.

And again, I've yet to see anyone actually propose an appropriate punishment for fortressing, let alone propose one that wouldn't also have a huge impact on furballs.

What do people suggest?

I read bumping as having to take an immediate evasive maneuver to avoid hitting another ship, thus the loss of the rest of their planned maneuver and their action phase. What I don't read bumping as is a planned maneuver to simply stall out because the game doesn't have a "cut engines" mechanic (which I'd be fine with).

I don't see why bumping a ship isn't that much different than bumping an obstacle. Leave the possibility of taking some damage on a bump, even if it's only on crits like debris clouds.

Or maybe there is a cut engines mechanic, which is different than a red stop or intertial dampeners. Cut engines maybe means you're stopped for that turn AND the next (to get the engines back up and running). So you can't just decide the turn you're going to actually move, you have to make that decision a turn ahead.

8 minutes ago, Lightrock said:

Guys, please . X-wing is a game about starfighters maneuvering against one another in space combat. It's most definitely NOT about starfighters setting up next to each other and bumping one another for an hour while the enemy force approaches. It would look extremely silly if you put that in a movie and it's definitely not how the game was designed to play. It doesn't matter what you do or don't find interesting or even necessary balance-wise. It might be legal, but it's about as far removed from the spirit and fluff of the game as possible. In the long term if it proves successful and common, something will need to be done about it or the quality of the players' experience will suffer.

This.

31 minutes ago, nigeltastic said:

If you define the spirit of the game as intense maneuvering and shooting then it's somewhat apparent that a triple kwing bomb list also ignores the spirit of the game since not much is farther from those things than performing 2 maneuvers before your opponent and dealing damage to them that they can't interact with. When a list can consistently win without firing a shot and with very little interactivity it seems weird to say 'hey you have to try to fly and shoot that list even though it barely plays the same game as you!'

A bomber is very much in the spirit of the game, although I'd argue a bomber makes more sense in an epic game against huge ships than against something like a TIE swarm.

Interpretation of the TO - you're looking for unsportsmanlike intent which is something that a 'to the letter' definition won't easily catch. It doesn't even need a change to the rules, just a clarification of what constitutes unsportsmanlike conduct.

"If the TO feels that, over multiple turns, a player is not making an honest effort to move their ships and engage the opponent then the TO should clearly warn the player on their conduct and remind them of their responsibility to engage in a sportsmanlike manner. Further offences should be considered Unsportsmanlike Conduct and be dealt with appropriately by the tournament floor rules."

Basically, fortressing = DQ.

Can you take this to its own thread to stop polluting the regional result thread?