Also, you and everyone else who goes on about these ships either being "broken" or not really are missing a big point. The initial podcast and post said that it wasn't about if they were OP or not. It was more about how they warp the meta. If you look at how many Imperial lists out there are effective and don't use Palp you start to see the issue. The game should be viable beyond having a key component that HAS to be in your list if you want a chance to win.

The issue is that staple Imperial ships NEED Palpatine to survive. I don't take Palpatine because he wins games for me, I take him so my Interceptor can have 1 bad defense roll and come out with 1 hull left instead of dead. The problem is with the number of Imperial ships that must have lots of green dice mods to live.

Well...if we were to go with the OP...what would you do if you COULDN'T take him? What type of a list would you build? Let's say your aces can't rely on him b/c he's banned. Do you still take Aces? Or do you go for other ship types? Or would it be nothing, but three /X7 Defenders in every list?

Without Palpatine X7 Defenders are by far the most survivable ship the Empire owns. Competitive list building would feature lots of X7 defenders, maybe some TIE/SFs, and Decimators.

X7 ryad with a hotshot copilot decimator

2 Tie sf with x7 ryad (personal favorite)

Predator Duchess and VI Sabacc with/d Rexler

Super Soontir Fel with Inquisitor and any 3rd ace

3 x7 defenders

Swarm leader Vader with a mini crack swarm

3 Juke fo's with an ace, probably carnor

Hotshot copilot Tomax Bren with 2 juke defenders

Gamma squadron Veteran spam

3 Tie/SF squadrons (lightweight frame makes a huge difference here)

Tie Swarm (crack shot or snap shot take your pick)

Tie Phantom plus things

I could type up more but I think I've got enough here to make my point.

lol okay - guess no one knows about 95% of these. I'll give you RAC and the lists with Defenders but almost everything else - what?!

edit: you know we're talking competitive X-Wing, right? Since WHEN is Gamma Squadron Vets competitive? Tie Swarms are just about dead, but that's just from the mouths of the best swarm players in the world...

derp.

edit edit: Oh, I get it - username makes the post.

With the exception of Dengaroo, I think people don't give enough credit to Tie Bombers. They can use Deadeye and you can fit 4 of them in a list with Homing Missiles. One will surely die pretty fast, but can usually get off a single Homing Missile shot. I almost won my Store Champ back before GC and LRS came out. I understand I'm in a small minority, though. Most people haven't really tried using Tie Bombers. A few others have tried Tie Bombers and reported back success. I'm not sure on super high tables, but I know it's a solid ship. Four of them firing Homing Missiles at the same target in a single round can often turn the game.

Dengaroo with the one shot mod losing one TL and doubling the Agility kills it, though.

With the exception of Dengaroo, I think people don't give enough credit to Tie Bombers. They can use Deadeye and you can fit 4 of them in a list with Homing Missiles. One will surely die pretty fast, but can usually get off a single Homing Missile shot. I almost won my Store Champ back before GC and LRS came out. I understand I'm in a small minority, though. Most people haven't really tried using Tie Bombers. A few others have tried Tie Bombers and reported back success. I'm not sure on super high tables, but I know it's a solid ship. Four of them firing Homing Missiles at the same target in a single round can often turn the game.

Dengaroo with the one shot mod losing one TL and doubling the Agility kills it, though.

Deadeye wasn't the build that made them good. It was the Pilot Skill 3 + (salvaged) astromech in conjunction with dead eye that made Torpedo U-boats so good in the game.

Bombers just don't have the upgrade slots to make use of their 4 munition and a bomb slot. FFG really didn't know what was it about munitions that makes them terrible (or what it takes to make them good).

With the exception of Dengaroo, I think people don't give enough credit to Tie Bombers. They can use Deadeye and you can fit 4 of them in a list with Homing Missiles. One will surely die pretty fast, but can usually get off a single Homing Missile shot. I almost won my Store Champ back before GC and LRS came out. I understand I'm in a small minority, though. Most people haven't really tried using Tie Bombers. A few others have tried Tie Bombers and reported back success. I'm not sure on super high tables, but I know it's a solid ship. Four of them firing Homing Missiles at the same target in a single round can often turn the game.

Dengaroo with the one shot mod losing one TL and doubling the Agility kills it, though.

I have flown quad Bombers successfully against X7 defenders a few times in the past. Deathfire with EM, LRS, Conners, and IPM remains one of my favorite ships and I believe is fully competitive with the right support.

However, Dengaroo matches are a lot worse if you can't get evade tokens.

With the exception of Dengaroo, I think people don't give enough credit to Tie Bombers. They can use Deadeye and you can fit 4 of them in a list with Homing Missiles. One will surely die pretty fast, but can usually get off a single Homing Missile shot. I almost won my Store Champ back before GC and LRS came out. I understand I'm in a small minority, though. Most people haven't really tried using Tie Bombers. A few others have tried Tie Bombers and reported back success. I'm not sure on super high tables, but I know it's a solid ship. Four of them firing Homing Missiles at the same target in a single round can often turn the game.

Dengaroo with the one shot mod losing one TL and doubling the Agility kills it, though.

Deadeye wasn't the build that made them good. It was the Pilot Skill 3 + (salvaged) astromech in conjunction with dead eye that made Torpedo U-boats so good in the game.

Bombers just don't have the upgrade slots to make use of their 4 munition and a bomb slot. FFG really didn't know what was it about munitions that makes them terrible (or what it takes to make them good).

I honestly don't think munitions can be made good in x-wing, with the exception of the occasional one on a ship that supports it (like Bossk or Miranda, or Prockets on Inquisitor/Jake).

By definition (one-shot weapon with 4+ dice usually) Munitions are largely about alpha strike. You make that alpha strike reliable and easy enough to pull off, you recreate the U-boat issue (ships that can't take the alpha, which is the majority of the ships in the game, disappear). You make that alpha unreliable and/or hard to pull off, then nobody plays them because there isn't enough reward to make up for the point investment.

Then core of the game, the way defenses are layered with green dice and HP and different ships having various amounts of one and the other seems to me to work reasonably well against sustained damage (3 dice attacks, with either a focus or target lock, occasionally with both or with range 1 bonuses), and way less well against dropping a metric ton of hit results with almost 0 variance on round 1.

There will always be S Tier lists. Just because you don't like the current S Tier lists (because you play an A Tier list or some other reason) doesn't mean you should nerf it. Palp Defenders isn't any better or worse for the meta than Dengaroo, Fenn/Asajj/Manaroo, Corran/Miranda, or any other S Tier list. If you nerf any of the S Tier lists then one of the A Tier lists takes its place and the whining cycle starts all over again.

There will always be S Tier lists. Just because you don't like the current S Tier lists (because you play an A Tier list or some other reason) doesn't mean you should nerf it. Palp Defenders isn't any better or worse for the meta than Dengaroo, Fenn/Asajj/Manaroo, Corran/Miranda, or any other S Tier list. If you nerf any of the S Tier lists then one of the A Tier lists takes its place and the whining cycle starts all over again.

Totally agree. I'm more interested in how Imperial players are going to adjust to FFG politely asking that we stop using Palp.

There will always be meta Boogeymen. Not a fruitful conversation.

There will always be S Tier lists. Just because you don't like the current S Tier lists (because you play an A Tier list or some other reason) doesn't mean you should nerf it. Palp Defenders isn't any better or worse for the meta than Dengaroo, Fenn/Asajj/Manaroo, Corran/Miranda, or any other S Tier list. If you nerf any of the S Tier lists then one of the A Tier lists takes its place and the whining cycle starts all over again.

Totally agree. I'm more interested in how Imperial players are going to adjust to FFG politely asking that we stop using Palp.

There will always be meta Boogeymen. Not a fruitful conversation.

Defenders everywhere in my opinion. I don;t play Empire much, but I play against Empire a lot, and I've yet to see anything Palpatine-less that matches 2+Defender lists. An Imperial meta without Palpatine will likely be domianted by 3x Defenders and 2xDefenders+another ace (Carnor, an TIE/sf, Inq etc.)

Totally agree. I'm more interested in how Imperial players are going to adjust to FFG politely asking that we stop using Palp.

Deadeye wasn't the build that made them good. It was the Pilot Skill 3 + (salvaged) astromech in conjunction with dead eye that made Torpedo U-boats so good in the game.

Bombers just don't have the upgrade slots to make use of their 4 munition and a bomb slot. FFG really didn't know what was it about munitions that makes them terrible (or what it takes to make them good).

First, you can use Guidance Chip or LRS to affect the die rolls for ordnance. There is also native ability built into Homing Missiles, Proton Torpedoes, and Concussion Missiles. That's enough, really.

You don't need to be able to fire off 4 munitions and a bomb slot to be effective. You really just need Extra Munitions and another missile/torpedo to make it worth it. I say Homing Missile if you can fit the points in. If you go with Quad Bomber lists, you don't usually need more than that. Most of the time you will get each bomber firing off at least 1 ordnance before it dies. That's 4 ordnance at targets. That should destroy a good portion of your opponent's list.

It does not work vs. Dengaroo.

X7 ryad with a hotshot copilot decimator

2 Tie sf with x7 ryad (personal favorite)

Predator Duchess and VI Sabacc with/d Rexler

Super Soontir Fel with Inquisitor and any 3rd ace

3 x7 defenders

Swarm leader Vader with a mini crack swarm

3 Juke fo's with an ace, probably carnor

Hotshot copilot Tomax Bren with 2 juke defenders

Gamma squadron Veteran spam

3 Tie/SF squadrons (lightweight frame makes a huge difference here)

Tie Swarm (crack shot or snap shot take your pick)

Tie Phantom plus things

I could type up more but I think I've got enough here to make my point.

lol okay - guess no one knows about 95% of these. I'll give you RAC and the lists with Defenders but almost everything else - what?!

edit: you know we're talking competitive X-Wing, right? Since WHEN is Gamma Squadron Vets competitive? Tie Swarms are just about dead, but that's just from the mouths of the best swarm players in the world...

derp.

edit edit: Oh, I get it - username makes the post.

Edit: please don't take away autothrusters though, that is an upgrade that Imperial ships would really miss.

^ Point taken, but those lists aren't as good as you think.

Agree that certain ships aren't given their share of credit, but no one needs convinced that the SF is not currently competitive.

Edit: Also, I think people would quickly realize how incompetent most imperial ships are without a menacing Fel (mechanically nerfed), Defender, or Palp alongside. Wish I could flash forward to see what ships we can expect for the Empire.

Also, you and everyone else who goes on about these ships either being "broken" or not really are missing a big point. The initial podcast and post said that it wasn't about if they were OP or not. It was more about how they warp the meta. If you look at how many Imperial lists out there are effective and don't use Palp you start to see the issue. The game should be viable beyond having a key component that HAS to be in your list if you want a chance to win.

The issue is that staple Imperial ships NEED Palpatine to survive. I don't take Palpatine because he wins games for me, I take him so my Interceptor can have 1 bad defense roll and come out with 1 hull left instead of dead. The problem is with the number of Imperial ships that must have lots of green dice mods to live.

This is exactly the issue. People are worried that a Tie Interceptor is vulnerable to one bad defensive roll and for some reason they believe that is unfair or not how things should be. You don't need a lot of dice mods with your greens, one only needs to realize that flying those ships is riskier than flying other ships.

Soontir and Turr could murder a list by themselves before Autothrusters and Palpatine were even in playtesting. They were skill ships that if flown well could avoid getting shot at, and in the off chance that they were shot at could use their actions to get a token stack to survive. But, they could also die in one unlucky moment. They were ships designed to reward players willing to fly well and accept the risk of bad dice variance.

If you didn't want to accept that level of variance in your list, you would fly a Bwing that had very little variance.

Palpatine has frankly spoiled Imperial players. They now believe that a low HP high agility ship is entitled to the same level of low variance that a Bwing has. But, the other ships in the game have to do far far more to overcome the relatively low variance that Palpatine provides ships. This is why the meta has moved to such overwhelming offense. In reality one should only need to shoot and shoot at high agility ships until the variance catches up to them. But with Palp, it's unlikely that variance will actually catch up to them.

^ Point taken, but those lists aren't as good as you think.

Agree that certain ships aren't given their share of credit, but no one needs convinced that the SF is not currently competitive.

I'll agree with you here if only because I haven't taken a SF squad to an event yet. I have been practicing with one quite a bit however and time will tell if that practice has been time well spent.

I appreciate your opinion, as per usual when reading your posts.

^ Point taken, but those lists aren't as good as you think.

Agree that certain ships aren't given their share of credit, but no one needs convinced that the SF is not currently competitive.

I'll agree with you here if only because I haven't taken a SF squad to an event yet. I have been practicing with one quite a bit however and time will tell if that practice has been time well spent.

I appreciate your opinion, as per usual when reading your posts.

It would be great if we could play test the hell out of all of the lists we theorycraft - I think there's an Imperial combo with the Upsilon ex-pac (not necessarily the ship itself) that has not been cracked. Hopefully the SF is in it and hopefully one of us finds it...

I yearn to have the privilege of naming a list!

Also, you and everyone else who goes on about these ships either being "broken" or not really are missing a big point. The initial podcast and post said that it wasn't about if they were OP or not. It was more about how they warp the meta. If you look at how many Imperial lists out there are effective and don't use Palp you start to see the issue. The game should be viable beyond having a key component that HAS to be in your list if you want a chance to win.

The issue is that staple Imperial ships NEED Palpatine to survive. I don't take Palpatine because he wins games for me, I take him so my Interceptor can have 1 bad defense roll and come out with 1 hull left instead of dead. The problem is with the number of Imperial ships that must have lots of green dice mods to live.

This is exactly the issue. People are worried that a Tie Interceptor is vulnerable to one bad defensive roll and for some reason they believe that is unfair or not how things should be. You don't need a lot of dice mods with your greens, one only needs to realize that flying those ships is riskier than flying other ships.

Soontir and Turr could murder a list by themselves before Autothrusters and Palpatine were even in playtesting. They were skill ships that if flown well could avoid getting shot at, and in the off chance that they were shot at could use their actions to get a token stack to survive. But, they could also die in one unlucky moment. They were ships designed to reward players willing to fly well and accept the risk of bad dice variance.

If you didn't want to accept that level of variance in your list, you would fly a Bwing that had very little variance.

Palpatine has frankly spoiled Imperial players. They now believe that a low HP high agility ship is entitled to the same level of low variance that a Bwing has. But, the other ships in the game have to do far far more to overcome the relatively low variance that Palpatine provides ships. This is why the meta has moved to such overwhelming offense. In reality one should only need to shoot and shoot at high agility ships until the variance catches up to them. But with Palp, it's unlikely that variance will actually catch up to them.

This is not a game about embracing variance, but of eliminating it as much as possible. When one player is subject to high variance, he is innately at a disadvantage to someone with low variance in a tournament setting. Bad dice variance is just that: bad. If one entire faction is based around high dice variance and another is not, the faction with the small variance has an innate advantage. Why do you think the highest placed players in tournaments run lists such as Commonwealth Defenders, Dengaroo, Regen, and such? They have low variance.

Also, you and everyone else who goes on about these ships either being "broken" or not really are missing a big point. The initial podcast and post said that it wasn't about if they were OP or not. It was more about how they warp the meta. If you look at how many Imperial lists out there are effective and don't use Palp you start to see the issue. The game should be viable beyond having a key component that HAS to be in your list if you want a chance to win.

The issue is that staple Imperial ships NEED Palpatine to survive. I don't take Palpatine because he wins games for me, I take him so my Interceptor can have 1 bad defense roll and come out with 1 hull left instead of dead. The problem is with the number of Imperial ships that must have lots of green dice mods to live.

This is exactly the issue. People are worried that a Tie Interceptor is vulnerable to one bad defensive roll and for some reason they believe that is unfair or not how things should be. You don't need a lot of dice mods with your greens, one only needs to realize that flying those ships is riskier than flying other ships.

Soontir and Turr could murder a list by themselves before Autothrusters and Palpatine were even in playtesting. They were skill ships that if flown well could avoid getting shot at, and in the off chance that they were shot at could use their actions to get a token stack to survive. But, they could also die in one unlucky moment. They were ships designed to reward players willing to fly well and accept the risk of bad dice variance.

If you didn't want to accept that level of variance in your list, you would fly a Bwing that had very little variance.

Palpatine has frankly spoiled Imperial players. They now believe that a low HP high agility ship is entitled to the same level of low variance that a Bwing has. But, the other ships in the game have to do far far more to overcome the relatively low variance that Palpatine provides ships. This is why the meta has moved to such overwhelming offense. In reality one should only need to shoot and shoot at high agility ships until the variance catches up to them. But with Palp, it's unlikely that variance will actually catch up to them.

Your points about Soontir and Turr are correct if every faction goes back to using only what cards were available before Autothrusters and Palpatine. Now there are too many abilities that don't care about your flying skill with a 3HP ship.

You are also correct that it is riskier to fly an Interceptor than a B-Wing and I'm glad for it as it adds flavor and diversity to the game. I personally enjoy flying risky ships and have done so competitively since I started playing just as Wave 4 hit the shelves. However, there's a difference between risk and suicide. Pre-Autothrusters meta was risk, current day meta is suicide without further mitigation hence Palpatine.

Still, high variance means that every now and then you'll have a really good result. Low variance will probably mean a string of 'not quite' results.

Still, high variance means that every now and then you'll have a really good result. Low variance will probably mean a string of 'not quite' results.

True and it happens time and time again. However, over 6 rounds of swiss the odds are extremely high that you will have at least 1 or 2 games where variance gets you killed. With the string of "not quite" results that is at least something you can count on and plan around. Nobody can plan anything around variance except to try to get rid of it.

Also, you and everyone else who goes on about these ships either being "broken" or not really are missing a big point. The initial podcast and post said that it wasn't about if they were OP or not. It was more about how they warp the meta. If you look at how many Imperial lists out there are effective and don't use Palp you start to see the issue. The game should be viable beyond having a key component that HAS to be in your list if you want a chance to win.

The issue is that staple Imperial ships NEED Palpatine to survive. I don't take Palpatine because he wins games for me, I take him so my Interceptor can have 1 bad defense roll and come out with 1 hull left instead of dead. The problem is with the number of Imperial ships that must have lots of green dice mods to live.

This is exactly the issue. People are worried that a Tie Interceptor is vulnerable to one bad defensive roll and for some reason they believe that is unfair or not how things should be. You don't need a lot of dice mods with your greens, one only needs to realize that flying those ships is riskier than flying other ships.

Soontir and Turr could murder a list by themselves before Autothrusters and Palpatine were even in playtesting. They were skill ships that if flown well could avoid getting shot at, and in the off chance that they were shot at could use their actions to get a token stack to survive. But, they could also die in one unlucky moment. They were ships designed to reward players willing to fly well and accept the risk of bad dice variance.

If you didn't want to accept that level of variance in your list, you would fly a Bwing that had very little variance.

Palpatine has frankly spoiled Imperial players. They now believe that a low HP high agility ship is entitled to the same level of low variance that a Bwing has. But, the other ships in the game have to do far far more to overcome the relatively low variance that Palpatine provides ships. This is why the meta has moved to such overwhelming offense. In reality one should only need to shoot and shoot at high agility ships until the variance catches up to them. But with Palp, it's unlikely that variance will actually catch up to them.

This is not a game about embracing variance, but of eliminating it as much as possible. When one player is subject to high variance, he is innately at a disadvantage to someone with low variance in a tournament setting. Bad dice variance is just that: bad. If one entire faction is based around high dice variance and another is not, the faction with the small variance has an innate advantage. Why do you think the highest placed players in tournaments run lists such as Commonwealth Defenders, Dengaroo, Regen, and such? They have low variance.

Someone that is subject to high variance is not innately at a disadvantage. Anyone embracing variance that has an above average day with his variance can be nearly unstoppable. The flip side of that is also true, someone embracing variance with a below average day will seriously struggle that day. Embracing variance is embracing risk. Sometimes the risks can pay huge dividends, and sometimes they will burn you. That's how things should be.

I know exactly why people run lower variance lists. I have done well with both low and high variance lists.

Saying that variance puts someone at a disadvantage isn't accurate. It just puts them in a much more risky situation. Think about it like poker. Playing low variance is like playing limit holdem. You will rarely have big swings in your chip stack, which means you will win slowly, but also lose slowly. But, No Limit holdem is a different beast. You can win huge pots in one hand and also lose huge pots in a single hand. Playing limit over a month and playing no limit over a month can yield similar profits. But, with limit a player can expect to see a slow and steady line graph of his profits of the month, but a no limit player will likely see much bigger jumps and falls in the graph only to arrive at a similar result.

Playing high agility low HP ships is like playing No Limit. There are some days that you will get kicked in the teeth, but others where you are basically unstoppable.

It used to drive me nuts hearing people complain that their Soontir was one shotted behind a rock at range 3 because they rolled 5 blanks. But, those same people never equally complained when they rolled 5 evades at range 3 through a rock.

I guess my overall point is that if you are going to allow Palpatine to flatten the variance curve for ships, then you need to flatten the curve. You can't just raise the floor and leave ceiling super high.

^ Point taken, but those lists aren't as good as you think.

Agree that certain ships aren't given their share of credit, but no one needs convinced that the SF is not currently competitive.

I'll agree with you here if only because I haven't taken a SF squad to an event yet. I have been practicing with one quite a bit however and time will tell if that practice has been time well spent.

I appreciate your opinion, as per usual when reading your posts.

It would be great if we could play test the hell out of all of the lists we theorycraft - I think there's an Imperial combo with the Upsilon ex-pac (not necessarily the ship itself) that has not been cracked. Hopefully the SF is in it and hopefully one of us finds it...

I yearn to have the privilege of naming a list!

It's probably going to be Palp + 2 Aces, just swapping the second defender for Omega Leader to be able to fit in the Upsilon + maybe the Kylo Shuttle title. I made a post about it in the Squad Forums. Coordinate allows you to do dirty things with Omega Leader or PtL Ryad.

Deadeye wasn't the build that made them good. It was the Pilot Skill 3 + (salvaged) astromech in conjunction with dead eye that made Torpedo U-boats so good in the game.

Bombers just don't have the upgrade slots to make use of their 4 munition and a bomb slot. FFG really didn't know what was it about munitions that makes them terrible (or what it takes to make them good).

First, you can use Guidance Chip or LRS to affect the die rolls for ordnance. There is also native ability built into Homing Missiles, Proton Torpedoes, and Concussion Missiles. That's enough, really.

You don't need to be able to fire off 4 munitions and a bomb slot to be effective. You really just need Extra Munitions and another missile/torpedo to make it worth it. I say Homing Missile if you can fit the points in. If you go with Quad Bomber lists, you don't usually need more than that. Most of the time you will get each bomber firing off at least 1 ordnance before it dies. That's 4 ordnance at targets. That should destroy a good portion of your opponent's list.

It does not work vs. Dengaroo.

Guidance chip only modifies 1 dice, not the same as getting a focus/target lock as the old U-boat combo. Bombers are terrible and there is no way to build them anywhere near the Dengaroo (let alone the pre-nerfed U-boats). You just can't do anything with them. Homming missiles is 8 points vs the 5-6 points the torpedoes were. Deadeye allows you to target anything in your arc which works better at pilost skill 3 because you can't get blocked as easy as you were at pilot skill 5. Also if they did manage to arc dodge you U-boats had a PWT so it wasn't as big as a problem. This is a fact and no matter how you build TIE bombers it will never work. This is what needs to be fixed with bombers.

• An ept pilot with skill <5
• An ability to reroll their own attack dice when firing missiles
• An ability to attack higher pilot skill ships

Bombers don't have that, as for the shuttle title why would you spend points on Support bombers when you can spend points (and probably already are) on the ultimate support shuttle. Torpedo and missile secondary weapons were never good to begin with. U-boats proved that they can be built up but only in a very specific manner. When that is done it does what missiles and torpedoes should have done in the first place, remove enemy ships, however since it becomes very difficult to defend from such attacks FFG has decided to keep missiles and torpedoes both underpowered and overcosted. And since the TIE Bomber was nothing more than a bunch of open slots for secondary weapons, the TIE Bomber is essentially a point sink. It is not that good in jousting and it has huge holes in which you can easily overload it with upgrades.

...but I really don't care that much. I never really play tournament level games. I'm just noting what I see. I think it would be better if there were more variety in Imperial lists these days. I think it would be better than just waiting for the next broken thing to come out.

With all due respect, if you don't play tournament games then it seems unlikely you would have a grasp of what the overall state of the game is and which lists are the common sights for each faction, over a wider spectrum than a local area. However, even a cursory glance at recent, significant tournament results shows nothing to support the idea that a majority of Imperial lists contain Palpatine or Scum ones contain Manaroo. Neither of them is broken, and assuming there will always be a 'next broken thing' when really there have only been two (original rules Phantom, Deadeye Jumpmasters) is both excessively myopic and entirely untrue.

While I understand that it might seem someone who doesn't play tournaments anymore might not have an idea of what's going on, I do think I have a nice idea of what's happening. I look at tournament results. I listen to podcasts. I spend too much time on these forums. I used to do tournaments. I have played a lot of game systems. I think I understand quite a bit about this game and how it works.

Also, you and everyone else who goes on about these ships either being "broken" or not really are missing a big point. The initial podcast and post said that it wasn't about if they were OP or not. It was more about how they warp the meta. If you look at how many Imperial lists out there are effective and don't use Palp you start to see the issue. The game should be viable beyond having a key component that HAS to be in your list if you want a chance to win.

My man.

I haven't wanted to detract from the conversations the initial post started, but the real question is what would happen, regardless of how, you were faced with building an Imperial list without Palp? What if everyone had to do this? Is World's representative of these results? RE: One Imperial list without Palp made top 32. Are you satisfied playing only Decimators and Defenders?

FFG is starting to provide the faction with stand alone ships, but that effort is embarrassingly outpaced by the amount of Scum and anti-Ace tech that they are pumping out. It's a serious problem and all the wind spent complaining about Imperials and Acewing has filled the sails of the galaxies deplorables.

Side note: The frustration with Defenders probably comes from the fact that these ships can stand alone but Palp exists and you can fit a lot of x7 and Shuttle into 100 points. We're in a transition phase where both powerhouses exist at the same time - think Jurassic Park.

I sense a real shift in the game itself and the blame game on the forums and wanted to get this community thinking about it.

I am seeing where this post is going from the original post and i do agree with what you said here.

I guess my overall point is that if you are going to allow Palpatine to flatten the variance curve for ships, then you need to flatten the curve. You can't just raise the floor and leave ceiling super high.

As other people have been saying, the meta at this point has the risk of playing a traditional Imp Aces list far outweigh the rewards because of even more tricks to assure damage (Not just Palp). Even with Palp, Interceptors can still blank out and die in a puff of smoke. Yeah, they had uses back in the day, but that was then, this is now.