10 minutes ago, CaribbeanNinja said:

20. BEN!

You called, master?

23 minutes ago, Ginkapo said:

*expanded launchers

Care to, uh...expand on that?

I will say there was some traction for Rapid Reload, but the consensus was that for both RR and EL, the advent of Targetting Scramblers still wasn't making a dent in how often people go to the well on APT's. There was some speculation that Damage Control Officer, if seen often enough, may effect that.

My own observation; I think its kind of interesting that at this point there are a several card effects that either soft or hard counter APT's that aren't quite/nearly/at all effective against the Ordinance Modifications that add die to your armament. Those being, Lando, Admonition, Mon Mothma, Targetting Scramblers and now Damage Control Officers. Lando obviously sees plenty of play, but as a discard/reroll effect he's no guarantee and he's more of a pseudo-brace whose efficacy against crit effects is a nice bonus. The others all have some kind of restriction which prevents them, IMO, from impacting APT's hold on the slot.

Mon Mothma is an admiral, and you can only take one. And while I think she is an awesome admiral, if you take her you are probably taking a certain kind of fleet in order to make use of her effect. And we don't see her all that often/as much as I personally think we should.

Targetting Scramblers are great, but require you to take an interdictor.

Admonition is also great, but you can only put it on one ship.

Damage Control Officer is the first upgrade that can counter crit effects that even has the potential for widespread use across the factions. Of course, she requires ships that run a contain token and occupies a highly contested upgrade slot. I think if she becomes popular we'll see a shift, but for now the value APT's provide at their point cost simply overwhelm the other options. The seven point difference between APT's and Expanded Launchers is no small factor.

Looking forward to your thoughts Gink.

You called it enhanced armament in ordnance upgrades...

14 minutes ago, Ginkapo said:

You called it enhanced armament in ordnance upgrades...

...roflmao. My B. Good catch, fixed it.

9 hours ago, Madaghmire said:

A major part of the reason I wanted to open this up was to spread the blame--I mean to get a wider view. I do hope we see some dissenting opinions posted, and not just by those of us involved in the list.

Really looking forward to Tirion's post

(To be read in a southern general's voice from the civil war. I don't know why that's just the way it came out.)

Here you will find some of my thoughts on the blatant disregard for the truth in this here document.

Officer
- Even though I conformed to the group I was curious if a card that can only be used once on one ship was truly deserving.

Ion
- I lobbied for Ms-1s to at least be thought about but Schmitty correctly dismissed that quit hastily citing his thorough regional data.

Ordnance
- I once again argued staunchly for an upgrade that would fail to win in Rapid Reload. Pointing out to the panel that targeting scramblers seriously hurt your chances of getting a crit. But was once again dismissed by Schmitty and his oppressive facts, pointing out that targeting scramblers had made zero impact on APTs being brought to regionals.

Best generic squadron
- Finally I have swung a vote and started a trend with my statements of reality! A bit of context y wings were leading the vote, obviously incorrectly, in this category with tie bombers in second. My colleagues were understandably smitten with JJ's championship fleet, but alas sense finally won out. Here is an excerpt,
"How can we say squadrons that have a singular purpose are the best? I realize that puts a lot of imperial squadrons in an inherent disadvantage, but saying the y wing or TIE bomber to me is pigeon holing the category...... Tell me if I'm taking this to Farr - Tirion"
Great argument and the first Toryn joke. The truth prevails and madness was stayed.

Best ship -
How something that cannot even always shoot is the best ship is a disgrace to good people that read these awards. Ard and myself attempted to bring some semblance of redemption to our constituents with the MC30 but they would not turn away from their abuse of reality. Claiming that the Mc30 was only in the spotlight due to the GR75. I fear for our very souls.

Best rebel title -
Once again the panel was in danger of devolving into substance less opinions pushing for bright hope, I do wonder if there should be an investigation into whether my colleagues have financial interest in proliferation of these ships. Thankfully I was present to point out that Yavaris should be considered and that a GR75 with out a title is still a GR75. While a nebulon with out a title is well, less then it's sum. Mad and Truthiness then pointed out in a question heavy meta nothing is a better force multiplier than Yavaris. And hence the correct conclusion had come to matter.

Rebel commander
- I quickly exerted sanity in this discussion and Dodonna won out.

All seriousness aside thank you to Mad for asking me to help out and thank you for this great write up you have us. I had a great time with everyone involved in the process and hope you'll have your resident dissenter back for the next one!

27 minutes ago, Tirion said:

Rebel commander

- I quickly exerted sanity in this discussion and Dodonna won out.

Dodonna is bad and you are bad for liking him.

4 minutes ago, shmitty said:

Dodonna is bad and you are bad for liking him.

o it is on good sir!

So I will dub these hastily and thoughtless retorts from Attichitcuk the “Itchies”. Please take these with a grain of salt, because the Wookiee is getting old…

1. Best Retrofit Upgrade (Upgrades which slot into either the offensive or defensive retrofit slot)

Winner- Expanded Hanger Bays. Correct. Especially with Relay helping out. Off to a good start but...

1a. ECM - Because there should be a Defensive Retrofit Chewie. And I don’t care what that Shmitty says, ECMs are baller.

2. Best Limited Ship Upgrade- (Fleet Support, Experimental Retrofits, Fleet Commands)

Winner- Bomber Command Center. Correct. Not even close.

3. Best Officer Upgrade- (General)

Winner- Skilled First Officer. Okay, but the Intel Officer (albeit expensive) looks down upon you with disgust. Disgust I tell you...

4. Best Officer Upgrade- (Faction Specific)

Winner- Toryn Farr. Correct. Because Wave Thor. Not Wave Jive yet. Get to it slacker.

5. Best Weapons Team Upgrade-

Winner- Ordinance Experts. Correct. Not even close.

6. Best Support Team Upgrade-

Winner- Fighter Coordination Teams. Correct but the Honorable mention should go to Engine Techs. Medical Team? I thought I raised you better than that.

7. Best Ion Cannon Upgrade-

Winner- Ion Cannon Batteries. Wrong. Come on son, This is the Leading Shots slot. You ARE Bananaballs.

8. Best Turbolaser Upgrade-

Winner- H9 Turbolasers. Correct* ASTERISK (but they’re all pretty good except, well, see below.)

9. Best Ordinance Upgrade-

Winner- Assault Proton Torpedoes. Correct. This is a Not Even Close category right now.

10. Best Squadron Upgrade- (Generic)

Winner- X-Wings. I’m flipping them for you. Y-Wings and the old T-Bs are the clear winners here. X-Wings should be Honorable Mentions.

11. Best Ace Squadron- (NSFW again, which makes this a tradition for the category. I hope Marek “Lexington“ Steele wins the next one…)

Winner- Baller Mithel. Baller Mithel is more than correct, he is a baller. Good work there, son. Back on track.

12. Best Ship-

Winner- GR75 Transport. I have...no words. Take those worms out back. The best ship is the MC30. At least you got it in the honorable mention.

13. Best Title- (Imperial)

Winner- Demolisher. Yup.

14. Best Title- (Rebel)

Winner- Yavaris. Nope. Admonition is here. Yavaris is the Honorable Mention. Points for trying.

15. Best Commander- (Imperial)

Winner- Motti. I agree with this, and the sentiment that it is boring...That Wave 5 though...

16. Best Commander- (Rebel)

Winner- General Jan Dodonna- Riekkan is still more of a pain in the ass than Dodonna. I mean A PAIN IN THE ASS.

17. Most Improved-

Winner-H9’s- Yup, I’ll give that to you. Correct.

18. Where Have You Gone, Joe DiMaggio?-

“Winner”- XI7 Turbolasers- XI7s haven't gone anywhere. Do you even play this game son? You know what went away? KONSTANTINE. You can’t find that joker anywhere anymore...and yes he just came out Wave Thor.

19. The Jar-Jar Award, a WTF Were They Thinking Moment-

“Winner”- Repair Crews- Ok they suck. But the real winner is Slaved Turrets and Honorable mention to Sensor Teams because I want Gink to be pissed at the Itchies.

20. Best Armada meme- "Classic Ben" Just beats out "Armada is dead."

SO all in all about 11/20? Come on son, you need to try harder. And what's that? You asked for help? Let me tell you, those friends of yours are NOT coming over for the next Life Day if they don't clean up their acts.

CNinja EDIT Sorry about the Wookiee formatting. Added number 20.

see my quote about the y wings and TBs. I will argue to the end.

Pretty much everything about that post annoys me.

3 minutes ago, CaribbeanNinja said:

So I will dub these hastily and thoughtless retorts from Attichitcuk the “Itchies”. Please take these with a grain of salt, because the Wookiee is getting old...

1. Best Retrofit Upgrade (Upgrades which slot into either the offensive or defensive retrofit slot)

Winner- Expanded Hanger Bays . Correct. Especially with Relay helping out. Off to a good start but...

1a. ECM - Because there should be a Defensive Retrofit Chewie. And I don’t care what that Shmitty says, ECMs are baller.

2. Best Limited Ship Upgrade- (Fleet Support, Experimental Retrofits, Fleet Commands)

Winner- Bomber Command Center .

Correct. Not even close.

3. Best Officer Upgrade- (General)

Winner- Skilled First Officer. Okay, but the Intel Officer (albeit expensive) looks down upon you with disgust. Disgust I tell you...

4. Best Officer Upgrade- (Faction Specific)

Winner- Toryn Farr .

Correct. Because Wave Thor. Not Wave Jive yet. Get to it slacker.

5. Best Weapons Team Upgrade-

Winner- Ordinance Experts.

Correct. Not even close.

6. Best Support Team Upgrade-

Winner- Fighter Coordination Teams.

Correct but the Honorable mention should go to Engine Techs. Medical Team? I thought I raised you better than that.

7. Best Ion Cannon Upgrade-

Winner- Ion Cannon Batteries .

Wrong. Come on son, This is the Leading Shots slot. You ARE Bananaballs.

8. Best Turbolaser Upgrade-

Winner- H9 Turbolasers . Correct* ASTERISK (but they’re all pretty good except, well, see below.)

9. Best Ordinance Upgrade-

Winner- Assault Proton Torpedoes . Correct. This is a Not Even Close category right now.

10. Best Squadron Upgrade- (Generic)

Winner- X-Wings. I’m flipping them for you. Y-Wings and the old T-Bs are the clear winners here. X-Wings should be Honorable Mentions.

11. Best Ace Squadron- (NSFW again, which makes this a tradition for the category. I hope Marek “Lexington“ Steele wins the next one…)

Winner- Baller Mithel. Baller Mithel is more than correct, he is a baller. Good work there, son. Back on track.

12. Best Ship-

Winner- GR75 Transport .

I have...no words. Take those worms out back. The best ship is the MC30. At least you got it in the honorable mention.

13. Best Title- (Imperial)

Winner- Demolisher . Yup.

14. Best Title- (Rebel)

Winner- Yavaris . Nope. Admonition is here. Yavaris is the Honorable Mention. Points for trying.

15. Best Commander- (Imperial)

Winner- Motti . I agree with this, and the sentiment that it is boring...That Wave 5 though...

16. Best Commander- (Rebel)

Winner- General Jan Dodonna- Riekkan is still more of a pain in the ass than Dodonna. I mean A PAIN IN THE ASS.

17. Most Improved-

Winner-H9’s- Yup, I’ll give that to you. Correct.

18. Where Have You Gone, Joe DiMaggio?-

“Winner”- XI7 Turbolasers - XI7s haven't gone anywhere. Do you even play this game son? You know what went away? KONSTANTINE. You can’t find that joker anywhere anymore...and yes he just came out Wave Thor.

19. The Jar-Jar Award, a WTF Were They Thinking Moment-

“Winner”- Repair Crews- Ok they suck. But the real winner is Slaved Turrets and Honorable mention to Sensor Teams because I want Gink to be pissed at the Itchies.

SO all in all about 11/20? Come on son, you need to try harder. And what's that? You asked for help? Let me tell you, those friends of yours are NOT coming over for the next Life Day if they don't clean up their acts.

Roflmao. Awesome.

Taking them as they come;

1. Yeah, we could probably split the retrofits. Will give due consideration to that next wave.

2. Med Team is awesome! One point and immunity to like a third of the criticals in the deck! (Not at all sure about that) Eliminates a lot of the worst ones like Comm Noise! (Totes sure about that)

3. I...uh...also voted Leading shots. But ICB's are really good. Try them Itchie! They are Holiday Special!

4. Tirion addressed this.

5. GR75's are in like, 100 percent of rebel lists. More if you count imperial players trying to cheat. Not gonna lie though, we all grumbled about giving the flotilla the nod.

6. Admo won last time. It was Yavaris' turn. So good.

7. Yeah there was some support for Rieekan and Ackbar, but since Rieekan won last time and the numbers were there for Dodonna for at least the beginning of the regional season we gave it to him.

8. Konstantine would have had to arrive to go anywhere. Xi7's used to be in like every list, often in multiple. At the very least, the increase alternative viable options have lead to a marked decrease. Things like H9's on MC30T's, Spinals on Salvation, VSD's and even occasionally ISD's have cut their usage.

9. Actually, I've used slaved turrets on Arq's with Vader. I think slaved turrets have an actual place now. Repair Crews are hot garbage! Hot garbage I say! Boo says I!

Obviously these numbers correlate with the order of dissent, not the items as marked on the list.

1 minute ago, Madaghmire said:

Med Team is awesome! One point and immunity to like a third of the criticals in the deck! (Not at all sure about that) Eliminates a lot of the worst ones like Comm Noise! (Totes sure about that)

16 of 52

Ergo, close enough. Certainly "Like" a third.

Here's my dissenting opinions that we discussed:

1. Best Retrofit. I went with Boosted Comms, but I was amenable to Expanded Hangars as well. I didn't feel there was a true stand out in this category

2. Best Limited Ship Upgrade. I was in the majority for this one. BCC was a no brainer.

3. Best Officer Upgrade. I went with Flight Commander. SFO is not something that dramatically changes the way you play a ship. It's an add on that you use when you haven't used your officer slot and you have the points. Good? Absolutely. Game altering? Nah.

4. Best Officer Upgrade (Faction Specific). I feel like I had another though initially, but if I did, I can't remember what it was. Farr is fantastic.

5. Best Weapons Team Upgrade. Meh. I went with Flight Controllers. Shmitty and his silly data shut me down. Stupid data.

6. Best Support Team Upgrade. Yay with the majority!

7. Best Ion Cannon Upgrade. How the hell did we get here? Leading Shots you silly gits. Nobody but Shmitty uses these things.

8. Best Turbolaser Upgrade. I agreed early on that H9s deserved this win. The change in the meta post-Worlds was instantaneous. TRCs would have been my back up, but H9s are so handy for hunting the ubiquitous flotillas.

9. Best Ordnance Upgrade: Yup, APTs. I think this will possibly shift to Expanded Launchers if enough tank MC80As and ISD IIs show up, because I fully expect to see DCOs on those two ships constantly in wave 5. For wave thor, though, there is no question APTs are everywhere.

10. Best Squadron Upgrade. I was in the crowd of Y-Wings or TIE Bombers. The single die bomber can the run of the field in wave thor. I felt it defined the wave more than the X-Wing, especially once double BCCs became a thing. I thought the X-Wing was a good choice, but for another category (coming).

11. Best Ace Squadron. I can't even remember who I put forward for this, but I'm aboard the Mauler train now. Large squadron balls means lots of use for Mauler.

12. Best Ship. This wasn't even a choice. Flotillas were everywhere and the GR-75 Transport was the most efficient of the bunch.

13. Best Imperial Title- Demolisher, but we got to see it more and more marginalized thanks to those scatters. GOOD. ROT IN A FLOTILLA INFESTED HELL YOU DEVIL MACHINE.

14. Best Rebel Title- I think I originally lobbied for Bright Hope, but I caved to Yavaris. Like Mad said, it's about damned time. Yavaris+Flight Commander+Fight Coordination Team is the Rebel Demolisher.

15. Best Imperial Commander- What Mad said. Motti. Stupid, stupid Motti.

16. Best Rebel Commander- Ok, so I'm "in love with JJ" for voting for Y-Wings, but then you jerks puts DODONNA in here?! I hate you all. Seriously: Rieekan, Rieekan, Rieekan. He's been the top Rebel admiral for a good while now, and for good reason. He's part of the equation for Demolisher becoming less effective in this wave. ALL HAIL THE ZOMBIE LORD, NOW AND FOREVER!

17. Most Improved- This is where I had X-Wings. Remember how there were all these complains about X-Wings. Then we suddenly have BCC and now we have ALL THE X-WINGS. I love it. I just thought they belonged here instead of in best squad.

18. Where Have You Gone, Joe DiMaggio. Mad went rogue on this, but I agree. XI7s have disappeared.

19. The Jar-Jar Award. I suggested Repair Crews to begin with, and just about everybody agreed. You can go die in a ditch with Demolisher. Oh wait, you're already dead. **** it. Killing you once wasn't enough.

4 minutes ago, Truthiness said:

16. Best Rebel Commander- Ok, so I'm "in love with JJ" for voting for Y-Wings, but then you jerks puts DODONNA in here?! I hate you all. Seriously: Rieekan, Rieekan, Rieekan. He's been the top Rebel admiral for a good while now, and for good reason. He's part of the equation for Demolisher becoming less effective in this wave. ALL HAIL THE ZOMBIE LORD, NOW AND FOREVER!

(...)

19. The Jar-Jar Award. I suggested Repair Crews to begin with, and just about everybody agreed. You can go die in a ditch with Demolisher. Oh wait, you're already dead. **** it. Killing you once wasn't enough.

WITH THE ZOMBIE LORD AROUND, KILLING THINGS ONCE IS NEVER-EVER, EVER ENOUGH!

44 minutes ago, Truthiness said:

7. Best Ion Cannon Upgrade. How the hell did we get here? Leading Shots you silly gits. Nobody but Shmitty uses these things.

I'm pretty sure Ion Cannon Batteries got in before we decided to allow repeat winners. AND I DON'T CARE IF I'M THE ONLY ONE USING THEM, THEY ARE THE BEST OFFENSE BOOST AVAILABLE FOR THE INTERDICTOR.

ahem

I agree with Ion Cannon Batteries on the Interdictor. I've certainly put them out in that role and on a Vader ISD-II where you generally don't need Leading shots and where depending upon your mood you can crit fish more easily. I just haven't seen the upgrade used more generally and broadly. By that I mean that I've played myself a couple of times, but I've literally seen no one else bring it across the 10ish tournaments across three gaming communities. Now, what I think it deserves is the "sleeper" award, and that might be a great category to add for next time. Best overall upgrade that almost no one is taking.

Apart form it being a key part of the double'dictor list I used, I've also had it be fun on the "Drill".

Which was a Liberty with Ion Cannon, Fire Control, XI7s and XX9s....

Pick a target and go to town... Shield Gone, Barely any redirect, all the damage to hull, two face up...

8 hours ago, Tirion said:

Officer
- Even though I conformed to the group I was curious if a card that can only be used once on one ship was truly deserving.

Okay, full disclosure, I kind of threw out votes on the awards and then got busy and didn't contribute much to the discussion. Sorry guys. You're the best.

But this, I did want to address. Here's the thing: SFO is much more than a one-use card that gives you -1 command. At the very least , it gives you 2 turns of it: the turn where you spend it, and the turn after. Because you are, of course, running it on a 2-command ship, this means that for the two most critical turns of the game, you have command 1.

Only it's not even command 1: on the critical turn, it's better than command 1, because you effectively have two commands queued up until the moment you activate that ship, even if it doesn't activate til the end of that round. Not sure which MC30 that ISD is going to turn toward this turn, and which will have to punch the thrusters to get out of arc? Slot a CF under your nav dial and wait til after the ISD has activated; SFO the shrimp that has a shot. Then, because he just burned both dials, you're resetting both for the next turn.

Add to that the Slicer Tools/Comm Noise/general screw-ups protection, and one single point is a steal . On command 2 ships, it's Support Officer, except it works for 2 turns, and you get to do it mid-turn, and you get the dial assurance, and it's 75% cheaper.

edit : Not only all that, but the unpredictability is a huge boon in and of itself. A speed-2 ISD1 supercarrier with a nav token is way harder to predict and hard trap than one without. Same thing here.

What was the difference between APT and ACM?

I really like APT but I LOVE ACM. Those ordnance put damage so quickly on whatever you shoot at that neither Motti or RBD have time to see what happened. I literally blew up a Motti's behemoth with just one triple tap from Demolisher.

I agree with the winner but I would think that ACM should be close. Of course Damage control officer worry me a lot.

DCO would be troublesome, but it is also in what is probably the most contested slot.

DCO on the ISD? No Wulff for Carrier-Tokens.

DCO on the MC80? No FC/FCT Shenanigans.

There are so many officers out there, and they all have such useful abilities, that its so crowded - I don't know how often we'll se them overall.

15 minutes ago, ovinomanc3r said:

What was the difference between APT and ACM?

I really like APT but I LOVE ACM. Those ordnance put damage so quickly on whatever you shoot at that neither Motti or RBD have time to see what happened. I literally blew up a Motti's behemoth with just one triple tap from Demolisher.

I agree with the winner but I would think that ACM should be close. Of course Damage control officer worry me a lot.

ACM's were mentioned, but overwhelmingly the data says APT's win out. (In terms of usage)

My own observation; ACM's are in an interesting place right now. We are seeing a rise in Neb B's with Satovation and my girl Yavaris, and their weak side shields absolutely hate ACM's. As should anything small based relying primarily on redirects to prevent hull damage (excepting, maybe , MC30's) And certainly over multiple volleys ACM's earnt those two points on large targets. But APT's ability to strike hull through shields (possibly landing a truly debilitating crit effect) combined with their lower cost make them difficult to displace, and those same small ships relying on redirects aren't exactly sporting hull to spare. Additionally, ACM's give you no value vs flotillas, wheras APT's do (assuming you have some way of putting an accuracy on that scatter)

Tl;dr- ACM's are great, but so are APT's and APT's are cheaper.

1 minute ago, Madaghmire said:

ACM's were mentioned, but for overwhelmingly the data says APT's win out.

My own observation; ACM's are in an interesting place right now. We are seeing a rise in Neb B's with Satovation and my girl Yavaris, and their weak side shields absolutely hate ACM's. As should anything small based relying primarily on redirects to prevent hull damage (excepting, maybe , MC30's) And certainly over multiple volleys ACM's earnt those two points on large targets. But APT's ability to strike hull through shields (possibly landing a truly debilitating crit effect) combined with their lower cost make them difficult to displace, and those same small ships relying on redirects aren't exactly sporting hull to spare. Additionally, ACM's give you no value vs flotillas, wheras APT's do (assuming you have some way of putting an accuracy on that scatter)

Tl;dr- ACM's are great, but so are APT's and APT's are cheaper.

Agree about the flotillas problem but I didn't care too much. There are no points on them even with the commander and when I get the chance I simply ram them with engine techs. Scatter that!!

Maybe was my fleet composition and what I expected to find at the regional what make me chose ACM.

to me this one simply came down to the masses being stuck in their ways. I can make a strong argument for each ordnance upgrade. But the community as a whole is stuck on APTs and I get it they are cheap. Imo it should, and maybe was, have been explored as an exhaustable card.

Given equal costs I would imagine both get played, with the field tilting towards ACM.

I've actually been bringing back ACM myself.

The one reason I moved over to APT in the first place was its one-shot capability: the difference between being able to kill a small ship with a one-shot and requiring a double-arc to do it is significant. My standard MC30 build--OE, APT, and H9--has a very good chance to one-shot a GR-75, Raider, or CR90 out a side arc. This gives you the capability to threaten a devastating alpha strike with that ship. Dropping two activations from 100% to dead in the opening activation of a round will cripple pretty much any fleet.

This is actually the reason I started running the MC30 MSU in the first place. You can counter the Clonisher by counter-threatening two Raiders with each of two MC30's during the Demo triple-tap turn, not only coming out ahead in points on the trade, but also sweeping the legs out from under it.

If you can't one-shot, though (and you're not running Dodonna), ACM is pretty well always better. And with the advent of the Kittens (which I can't one-shot), as well as the resurgence of the AF2, VSD, and ISD, I've been going to a hybrid build. I'll bring two ACM and two APT, with H9 on the APT. If I run up against something one-shottable, I retain the ability to double-threaten with two ships; if I run up against Star Destroyers, I have the heavy throughput of the ACM.

The two are very similar, so really the only time you'll really regret not having one or the other is the above-mentioned one-shot scenario.

===

Also, on the point of DCO neutering the ordnance upgrades: not that big a deal. I've encountered it a couple of times, and you know what? Contain can still be accuracied. Sure, it's eating an acc that would probably normally go on Brace, but Brace's effectiveness is mitigated against APT/ACM anyway. And I'd rather you brought DCO on that ISD than IO, Support Officer, SFO, Wulff, Veteran Captain... pretty much anything else.