A small imperial ship has often 3 green dice and 1 evade to dodge attack. That means that at least 1 hit will be avoided.

Rebels can strike hard yet not hard enough often mod dices with focus or predator.

Its frustrating when you land 4 hits on a imperial ship and they dodge with 1-3 evades. And next rebel ship needs to hit hard as well if you can. It requires 2 rebel ship to hopefully get at least 1 hit. For imperial ship just 1.

Last night I played against Palpace with 2 defenders. It's sick on how it's almost impossible as a rebel to take out that list. It's either palpmobile or defenders. And you rather want to take out the palpmobile first. They just dodge. No matter what you do they dodge. Worst is, rebels can modify their dice well on the defender and palp. You want to use Juke? Can't because you ship can used evade, only focus... Target Lock? Can't because you often take focus.

In short. Imperial ships are too good for their points that they can easily dodge and get hits in on rebels. And Rebels are to expensive for their points and can't follow piccolos advise on dodge and can't hit well...

Rey (with Finn) and Norra throw out a ton of damage and are nice and tanky. You get a lot of 4 and 5 hit attacks from those two. I expect now that U-Boats ate no longer a threat and HoTR is legal that you'll see a spike in Rebel lists that are winning. This weekend's regionals are bound to look much different than Worlds did.

Yeah, man, that last World's Series where the top players after all the store championships and the regionals and all the nationals...all coming down to that...and the top two lists both Imperial...I mean, DA...

Wait...they weren't both Imperial?

The absolutely top-tier, best-of-the-best lists, and they weren't both Imperial? HOW CAN BE?

Waitwaitwait...NEITHER WAS IMPERIAL?!

OP thesis: fail

I think you may have missed the part where Rebels made up half the Top 4 of Worlds through a sea of PalpAce variants. If they can do it, so can you.

Yeah, man, that last World's Series where the top players after all the store championships and the regionals and all the nationals...all coming down to that...and the top two lists both Imperial...I mean, DA...

Wait...they weren't both Imperial?

The absolutely top-tier, best-of-the-best lists, and they weren't both Imperial? HOW CAN BE?

Waitwaitwait...NEITHER WAS IMPERIAL?!

OP thesis: fail

I find it especially funny since this is the 2nd year in a row where Imperials aren't even in the finals. And the second year in which we have Palpatine, with only one in the top4, despite good representation among good players. Keep deluding yourselves that it's broken, guys. It will make it that much easier not to blame it on something else.

... To be fair, they kind of are a bit like Jumpmasters: They don't always (or even necessarily often) win the top spots, but they do restrict what lists are viable in opposition. This is exaberated by the anti-list tech to beat them often involves relatively advanced skill, while playing them (which is far from easy at the top tiers, of course) certainly looks easier from the other side.

They're not as bad, but if there were anything likely to be nerfed again... it'd be Palp and Defenders, certainly.

But, as noted, they don't win the top tiers anyway. It's tricky to deal with, eh?

Yeah, man, that last World's Series where the top players after all the store championships and the regionals and all the nationals...all coming down to that...and the top two lists both Imperial...I mean, DA...

Wait...they weren't both Imperial?

The absolutely top-tier, best-of-the-best lists, and they weren't both Imperial? HOW CAN BE?

Waitwaitwait...NEITHER WAS IMPERIAL?!

OP thesis: fail

Well, to be fair there is virtually no difference between top16 and winning statisticaly. There are too many variables like player fatigue and resistance to it that make statements about pure list efficiency difficult.

However the runner up gives you an answer: Rebels have the best mine-layer, the K-Wing. Conner Nets ruin the traditional aces and Sable demonstrated how Cluster Mines Make Defenders sweat. Then specificaly talking about Defenders those don't have Autothrusters, which gives the Rebel pancakes a lot of room for doing things, especially Dash.

What did you play against said Palpaces JimbonX?

I will agree that the x7's free evade is annoying - it's the main thing which makes that squad so tough. But it's not impossible to deal with. Rebels have plenty of tough ships themselves - less green dice, but shields and hull to match a defender, with often regeneration instead.

The big trick to dealing with Jukeing x7's is higher pilot skill. It's not a case of trying to outfly soontir fel - whilst a TIE defender may be hard to hang onto, you probably know where it's going - but it's a case of shooting before it does. If you can fire at a higher pilot skill than a juking TIE defender, it has the choice of spending the evade token....and not getting to use juke, or not spending the evade token and taking an extra hit.

Equally, Wes Janson remains as awesome as he always is. Shoot at Ryad, bust her target lock, mess with Vessery's attack into the bargain.

Imperial Aces rely on green dice quite a lot. Which is annoying when my opponents roll lots of evades. And when I roll lots of blanks.

Which is why I don't fly Imperial Aces.

meh

you spend any time being even the slightest bit frustrated with green dice, and you soon learn how to curb stomp the **** out of them

Rebel ships lore wise were never op, they were shielded and were consistently flown by main characters and mary sues.

Should be Free Evade Action on the X/7 title and Tie/D should had been -2 points also. The Defenders aren't OP, but they're easy to play and too difficult for local players to adjust because the best counters are bombs. Bombs however take so much skill to pull off. If the title was free Evade action it would allow things like the stress hog and Braylen to come into the meta and have an impact.

It's not that Rebels are UP, just that they cost too much for what they do, in most respects. So many good Imperial and Scum ships are good because of things like X/7 and K4 security droid.

Yeah, man, that last World's Series where the top players after all the store championships and the regionals and all the nationals...all coming down to that...and the top two lists both Imperial...I mean, DA...

Wait...they weren't both Imperial?

The absolutely top-tier, best-of-the-best lists, and they weren't both Imperial? HOW CAN BE?

Waitwaitwait...NEITHER WAS IMPERIAL?!

OP thesis: fail

I find it especially funny since this is the 2nd year in a row where Imperials aren't even in the finals. And the second year in which we have Palpatine, with only one in the top4, despite good representation among good players. Keep deluding yourselves that it's broken, guys. It will make it that much easier not to blame it on something else.

thats because palpatine only enrages those who dont think out of the box and just try to brute force things.

Against anyone with proper planning/tactics, hes annoying and nothing more. Ive never been phased by palpaces once i started understanding the basics of this game better.

Regen on the other hand...if you dont 1shot a regen ship odds are you gotta start over trying to kill them.

We're right above the "why are imperials the weakest" thread as of this post

Yeah, man, that last World's Series where the top players after all the store championships and the regionals and all the nationals...all coming down to that...and the top two lists both Imperial...I mean, DA...

Wait...they weren't both Imperial?

The absolutely top-tier, best-of-the-best lists, and they weren't both Imperial? HOW CAN BE?

Waitwaitwait...NEITHER WAS IMPERIAL?!

OP thesis: fail

I find it especially funny since this is the 2nd year in a row where Imperials aren't even in the finals. And the second year in which we have Palpatine, with only one in the top4, despite good representation among good players. Keep deluding yourselves that it's broken, guys. It will make it that much easier not to blame it on something else.

thats because palpatine only enrages those who dont think out of the box and just try to brute force things.

Against anyone with proper planning/tactics, hes annoying and nothing more. Ive never been phased by palpaces once i started understanding the basics of this game better.

Regen on the other hand...if you dont 1shot a regen ship odds are you gotta start over trying to kill them.

I disagree. Thats only really applicable when using other powercrept squadrons and even then not a given. Play any of the old move, have one focus and shoot low PS squadrons, though and it becomes disgusting. The Palpatine backed aces are not only a lot more manouverable to the point where its not hard to outmanouver you and then they are a lot better at dice-trading so even if you block them your not favoured. You basicaly need to get lucky and outplay them.

The game has crept beyond these ships anyways, so I don't think nerfing Palp is quite the way (although it would open up squad viability a bit). I just hope FFG manages to release ways to get these ships, the B-Wings, X-Wings, the spammable TIE-Fighters back into the game. Along with some ways to make generics that were never used viable, 4 TIE Interceptors look too good to just stand around on a shelf!

Just play one of the many many cards meant to deal with token stacking high agility shenanigans. Especially now that the ARC-170 release made stress a killer again, for Rebels.

the game has certainly moved beyond the bare bones; barely modified jousters that characterize the X and B (and K-fighter and an absolute crapton of other generics...basically everyone that isn't the Tie Fighter or the x7 Defender, ie the absolute most efficient ones, or TLTs/VCX/K-wing that can offer some potent punch beyond jousting, such as TLTs, Hera infinite 5-ks and a 4 die primary backed by autoblaster, or loads of bombs respectively)

honestly, I prefer it this way. Dice just take the player out of a maneuver based game when given too much leeway and rebels have plenty of ways to rein them in

hell, every ship from Wave 7 onward is hellishly competitive and I think the U will follow suit. It's cheap, has a 180 spin that can't be blocked and it's got room for, at the very least, FCS gunner.

TLT Ys are still very much a thing

and even the humble X still has Biggs

Just play one of the many many cards meant to deal with token stacking high agility shenanigans. Especially now that the ARC-170 release made stress a killer again, for Rebels.

hell yeah

guarantee that stress!

Oh dear one imperial ship gets a regen effect and it spoils your day, diddums.

Not like the other two factions had to deal with multiple ships regening is it.

Oh dear one imperial ship gets a regen effect and it spoils your day, diddums.

Not like the other two factions had to deal with multiple ships regening is it.

wait for real?

imperials with regen

(if you're talking about x7s, though, it's not the same. I personally find regen to be far stronger as you can faff off can get your shields back, while an x7's evades don't do diddly while not getting shot. trade off is evades are immediate while regen occurs, at the earliest, at the end of the round)

Hence me saying regen effect and not regening as I did in the second line.

Hence me saying regen effect and not regening as I did in the second line.

They may have broadly (very broadly...) similar outcomes in terms of damage taken over the course of the game but it is in no way a regen effect at all. It's mitigation plain and simple. That's like calling green dice a regen effect, at some point you've conflated disparate concepts so far that the words lose their inherent meaning.

What did you play against said Palpaces JimbonX?

Poe PS 9 with R5-P9, I.A., Rage, Thruster

Nien Numb with Rage, BB-8, I.A., Thruster

Stramm with R2-A3 and Tactian and title.

Disn't went well because bad flyi g and bloody as avoided 4 hits all the bloody time.

What did you play against said Palpaces JimbonX?

Poe PS 9 with R5-P9, I.A., Rage, Thruster

Nien Numb with Rage, BB-8, I.A., Thruster

Stramm with R2-A3 and Tactian and title.

Disn't went well because bad flyi g and bloody as avoided 4 hits all the bloody time.

Rage on Poe? Thats definitly experimental. Not neccessarily bad, but if you go up against a tried and tested S-Tier list I can see it falling apart.