We played a game last night on the ISB map.

Leia vs. Jabba

My opponent and I scored 68 points in 2.5 turns.

Fast paced, securing objectives, & pumping out maximum Damage both ways.

It was awesome!

We finished in 90 minutes and it was my opponent's first game of Skirmish. We likely could have finished in 35-40 minutes except I was explaining the Command Cards and differences with Strain from the Campaign version, which he plays in as one of my Rebel players.

It makes me really happy that the best way to deny your opponent points is by contesting objectives and killing the dudes shooting at you.

You don't worry with the increased amount of damage thrown around, that the game has diminished in complexity? " I move and shoot, you die, then you move and shoot and I die " Dice rolling and pick up your figures like an old 4th edition 40k game. Maybe the maps need to be increased in size or something should change to keep things interesting.

I played a couple of games the other day with the new rules. I don't think we've ever had so close games (point wise). Usually it'd be closer to clean sweeps in the points, but close enough on the table. This time it was close on the table and very close in points as well. I like the new system far better than I would have thought.

I've played 7-8 games with it now and I'm loving the new scoring. I get your concerns buckero0 but I haven't found that to be the case

A couple years back in X-Wing, there was an issue in tournament play regarding large ships (Millenium Falcon-size, as opposed to fighter craft). As befits larger figures, they were more costly in squadron points, had a higher damage output and were much more survivable. Once a larger amount of large ships got released, they dominated the meta completely, to the point that you rarely saw actual fighter craft beyond the bottom half of the standings. With proper upgrades and play, large ships were tough enough that they were rarely taken out by fighter craft within the alotted time limit, and so gave away no points. At the same time, they had a damage output that allowed them to easily melt fighter craft. In a large ships vs. fighter matchup they could comfortably fry one or two fighters and then just fly around picking their nose until time was called.

This was recognised as a problem and since fixed: large ships brought below half their hull points now give away half their points as VP.

The new points scoring rule in IA is switching this game to the pre-half-points meta of X-Wing.

It is obviously still early to tell. But after the first tournament we played with the new rules and the Jabba wave, I am seriously concerned about the direction IA skirmish play may be taking.

New and improved unique figures that we are getting are on the whole not only tougher, but also dish out more and more damage with more and more attacks for less and less points. This means that they can melt generic figures without blinking and give away little points in return. Jabba himself compounds the issue by stating that every generic you kill is worth even more VP. So unique-heavy lists will not only be a heavy points-denial tactic, they'll also rack up comparatively more points over the course of the game than generic-heavy lists.

Now, you might be thinking that IA having objectives unlike X-Wing might not make it a big deal. To which I would counter with Kenobi. Kenobi becomes a borderline broken must-have in the meta now. He makes generic units borderline unplayable beyond 2-3pt filler like Officers, since they can't score points with objectives, can only occupy terminals if Kenobi lets them by being somewhere closer to the actual ovjectives, and can hardly score any points with kills vs. uniques.

A player at a tournament this week stumbled upon a Merc list that had Jabba and allied-in Kenobi in it. It obviously needs some tweaks, but it went 3-0 handily without breaking a sweat. That includes my Blazing Troopers that I wanted to check out in the new meta and got completely destroyed, scoring just 10VP on crates (Ancorhead A), only because I got there before Kenobi thanks to some +move cards in my opening hand. It felt like I was completely locked out of the game, unable to score any objectives and unable to get any kills because everything had so much HP and half of it had native +evades or +blocks. Even Zillo is a joke now, because the design team has been handing out Pierce like Oprah and even if I manage to save a trooper with the extra block, he dies instantly afterwards to any of the multitude of ping effects (a 1pt Indentured Jester alone is pretty much a hard counter to Zillo as we know it). Jabba + Kenobi just feels dirty on a high overwiew, points-score level. I have no illusions that something with that combo in it will be the new 'the list', the same way Blazing Troopers was a while ago and 4x4 before that.

I get that the idea was to lessen the dominance of Trooper swarms and make uniques a bit more playable. However, I am concerned this change came at a very bad time. Together with Jabba AND Kenobi AND the new unique design philosophy AND increasing amount of splash damage and '1HP ping' effects AND the current map rotation that focuses on strong Pierce attacks (Dianoga), low figure count (ISB cameras) and interacting/control (everything else) I can see Imperial Assault tournament play devolving into front-loading lists with the toughest points-denial uniques, meeting in the middle of the map and checking who can roll better to kill their opponent's tough uniques first.

I hope I'm wrong.

Accidental doube-post.

I understand the concerns, but I don't think that the anti-trooper elements of the new wave and the rules update relegates gameplay to just chucking dice (and I get that your opinion was more nuanced that this, I'm just using hyperbole :-)). It does skew the meta toward having at least some uniques in your list, which mainly affects Imperials as the other two factions were already going to be doing that.

But in my 10ish games with the new rules I have found that superior strategy and tactics still win out. It's true, Jedi Luke and Obiwan are shredding black dice, and those hunters are one-shotting figures more than before, but that doesn't mean that quality list building and quality play won't still rise to the top, IMO. If you're running a lot of non-unique multi-figure deployments, that hurts you because you're losing a figure per attack a lot of times, but you still will have more figures on the board and so my focused Jedi Luke will kill your trooper but it will be overkill and a waste of such a powerful attack.

With my Scum Hunters list, I run sometimes one and sometimes two sets of regular Weequays, as objective getters and terminal sitters. They can be killed so easily, but the truth is that they usually last until the end of the game because the other player can't ignore Bossk and Shyla or my HKs, or if they do I'm happy to make that trade. And when left alone, regular Weequays actually have a decent attack and can cause a fair amount of problems for my opponent.

I share that not to say that your concerns aren't valid or that this disproves them (since my non-uniques only live because I have uniques), but only to say that things have changed, yes, but I think the game is still in great shape.

My two cents anyways.

-ryanjamal

I was just being a devil's advocate. My concern is real, but I don't think we're there yet. I do think there are matchups that are more challenging than others. Obiwan is not broken - but if you see him across the way, you do need to play differently. Same with Jedi Luke, they are hard to take down, especially with only troopers. I think that is the point actually. I don't think we're at the place where a team of only unique figures (although some form of this would probably be tough in the right hands) is the only way to play, but I do think a hybrid of the trooper/hero list is probably the best option at this point. You'll want some beat-sticks (a figure that can hit hard and consistently and take some licks) you'll also want some low point objective/terminal grabber/contesting figures that are able to be sacrificed without losing too many points in your list. Several of the newer figures are designed to be trooper-resistant (like Luke and Kenobi for starters) yet there are several other figures that are designed to chew through troopers (Vinto, Jabba helps) as well and some figures that are troopers (jettroopers, Rangers, dewbacks)

I think running a full trooper list is probably not the optimum build right now by design. The designers want a mix mash of figures and they want an even playing field. So a little of this, and a little of that is what is best at the moment.

14 minutes ago, ryanjamal said:

I understand the concerns, but I don't think that the anti-trooper elements of the new wave and the rules update relegates gameplay to just chucking dice (and I get that your opinion was more nuanced that this, I'm just using hyperbole :-)). It does skew the meta toward having at least some uniques in your list, which mainly affects Imperials as the other two factions were already going to be doing that.

But in my 10ish games with the new rules I have found that superior strategy and tactics still win out. It's true, Jedi Luke and Obiwan are shredding black dice, and those hunters are one-shotting figures more than before, but that doesn't mean that quality list building and quality play won't still rise to the top, IMO. If you're running a lot of non-unique multi-figure deployments, that hurts you because you're losing a figure per attack a lot of times, but you still will have more figures on the board and so my focused Jedi Luke will kill your trooper but it will be overkill and a waste of such a powerful attack.

With my Scum Hunters list, I run sometimes one and sometimes two sets of regular Weequays, as objective getters and terminal sitters. They can be killed so easily, but the truth is that they usually last until the end of the game because the other player can't ignore Bossk and Shyla or my HKs, or if they do I'm happy to make that trade. And when left alone, regular Weequays actually have a decent attack and can cause a fair amount of problems for my opponent.

I share that not to say that your concerns aren't valid or that this disproves them (since my non-uniques only live because I have uniques), but only to say that things have changed, yes, but I think the game is still in great shape.

My two cents anyways.

-ryanjamal

I also think when you take Generic Groups a few things have to be taken into consideration.

1. What is this Groups role in the Mission?

2. What amount of my opponent's resources is acceptable for me to relinquish their VP's?

3. Can the Group perform their role in the Mission?

4. Can the group allow other choices to fulfill their roles?

5. Will I get a coherent Command Deck advantage by playing this Group?

These are just a few things to consider in list building. If you want to mindlessly throw out Stormtroopers and hope they accomplish everything, it's probably not going to happen.

IA is much more close range and brutal than X-Wing. Generally if someone commits to killing their opponent's figure, then it's going to die, even if it's Vader. But, if beefy figures that are too difficult to kill within time-limits becomes a strategy, FFG can easily adopt a similar partial points rule to X-Wing. Let's worry about that when it becomes a problem, so far we haven't seen issues in that vein.

14 hours ago, player1750031 said:

A player at a tournament this week stumbled upon a Merc list that had Jabba and allied-in Kenobi in it. It obviously needs some tweaks, but it went 3-0 handily without breaking a sweat. That includes my Blazing Troopers that I wanted to check out in the new meta and got completely destroyed, scoring just 10VP on crates (Ancorhead A), only because I got there before Kenobi thanks to some +move cards in my opening hand. It felt like I was completely locked out of the game, unable to score any objectives and unable to get any kills because everything had so much HP and half of it had native +evades or +blocks. Even Zillo is a joke now, because the *design team has been handing out Pierce like Oprah and even if I manage to save a trooper with the extra block, he dies instantly afterwards to any of the multitude of ping effects (a 1pt Indentured Jester alone is pretty much a hard counter to Zillo as we know it). Jabba + Kenobi just feels dirty on a high overwiew, points-score level. I have no illusions that something with that combo in it will be the new 'the list', the same way Blazing Troopers was a while ago and 4x4 before that.

I hope I'm wrong.

I'm so glad I'm not the only one who felt this way.

On 27/1/2017 at 9:50 AM, player1750031 said:

A couple years back in X-Wing, there was an issue in tournament play regarding large ships (Millenium Falcon-size, as opposed to fighter craft). As befits larger figures, they were more costly in squadron points, had a higher damage output and were much more survivable. Once a larger amount of large ships got released, they dominated the meta completely, to the point that you rarely saw actual fighter craft beyond the bottom half of the standings. With proper upgrades and play, large ships were tough enough that they were rarely taken out by fighter craft within the alotted time limit, and so gave away no points. At the same time, they had a damage output that allowed them to easily melt fighter craft. In a large ships vs. fighter matchup they could comfortably fry one or two fighters and then just fly around picking their nose until time was called.

This was recognised as a problem and since fixed: large ships brought below half their hull points now give away half their points as VP.

The new points scoring rule in IA is switching this game to the pre-half-points meta of X-Wing

This was my initial concern when these changes were first rumoured back in November and when they were since announced recently. I had played X-Wing for several years before Imperial Assault was released, so I feared where that would lead.

So, I took it upon myself to test this at its extreme outlier. At first I played a list with only three figures (Vader-Inquisitor-Shyla) to see what hedging my points in "point-banks" would lead to. I Played several games before accepting that this did not work at all, and proceeded to swap Shyla for a set of elite Vader's Finest-Jet Troopers. This was more viable and I've played this list for far more games than the first iteration. I consider myself a decent enough player and those I've played against have certainly been challenging opponents. The main take-away, though, was that though some games where close, or even won, I'm struggling to make it work to a degree I don't with other lists. Yes, part of it has also been a learning curve, settling into how this list needs to be played in a drastically different way that any previous list I've played, almost like tipping the game on its head.

I'll play some more with it, just because its outlandishness is so strange it is entertaining. Especially, since I've always adviced new-comers to the skirmish scene to not play Vader and not to play Vader together with other expensive single-unit deployment groups in particular. I'll let you know if my assesment of it changes.

And here is to why, I no longer fear that the new rules will lead to a "Fat Han"-like meta in IA as it did in X-Wing: the games are different in some key aspects that have a crucial impact on game balance.

I) IA, unlike X-Wing, is not a pure fighting game. We have a ton of different ways to get points, both from the objectives and from various card and character abilities. The "Fat" lists simply cannot compete with this. At most the objectives might play on where you choose to engage the enemy, but you cannot contest or earn many points from objectives. Not even Obi-Wan, if he is in your list, can do enough to offset this.

II) It's no coincidence that the expression "command cards win games" is gaining traction. If there is one thing you cannot do with a list of few and strong figures, is waste your precious activations on loitering around a terminal.

III) X-Wing is a simultaneous maneuvering game and in any given round there are ships that will not get to shoot. Especially with the fewer-ship lists tending to have higher Pilot Skill, which makes lists with many ships, more often than not with lower Pilot Skill, moving last. This means that a "Fat Han"-like list, as those that dominated two years ago, will often deny one or more of the enemies the ability to shoot. That is not the case in IA. Yes you can play smart - and need to to do well - and deny some of your opponents their attacks. But never to the degree as in X-Wing. Moreso the expensive piggy-bank-characters such as found in its extreme in Vader tend to be melee characters. You need to be in your enemy's face and will find it very hard to make hit-and-run sniper attacks. Especially keeping in mind that activation order is different from X-Wing, and while I've found that you can do interesting things by using the 'pass' prerogative in the middle of a game, you still cannot avoid being out-activated by more traditional lists.

IV) Last but not least, it is probably no coincidence that this latest change to scoring hits at the exact same time as some of the strongest surge (as in spike, not the game symbol) damage abilities we've seen in the 2-year lifespan of the game. All lists will have to weather the newly added hunter and smuggler cards that puts potential damage output through the roof, but none more so than the lists depending on point-bank figures, as their survivability hinges on having a strong defense. A card that adds +3 damage, an extra attack die, or removes a defense die, will hit Vader, Chewie, the RGC or anyone with a printed bonus to defence, much harder than anyone else. With other units it might just kill them much faster - likely in one shot - but with figures like Vader they're pushed from near-untouchable to certainty of pushing damage through where you had none before. And it is not just the new cards, there are plenty of older cards that can do it similarly. In fact, in two of my games - against very different lists - Vader went down in just two rounds of fighting. Not because I made any grave tactical mistakes, but because of my opponent having the right cards at the right time (Ferocity+Call the Vanguard for figures with strong attacks, are as deadly as all those new nifty hunter cards).

In short, this is how I stopped worrying and learned to love the new scoring.