3 hours ago, gennataos said:

Hmm...interesting. I found the Austin regional final video and am watching it now. How would people recommend Mark approach this to break up the fortress? I could see him circling the K-wings around at range 3 and just taking repeated potshots at the lead ship until the formation has to break.

IMO there are a lot of ways he could have approached this that were better than his "try and force a bomb into it" attempt. Posted some of them here:

And yes, without Sabine crew the pure bomb lists wouldn't be nearly as effective. If you manage to kill Sabine early you're usually just fine tanking the remaining hits as long as you don't cluster your ships together. But against a good player, you'll never kill Sabine early.

A lot of her problem is infinite range and no realy downsides. Compare with Dace Bonearm for instance - both range limited *and* gets stress.

Remember in terms of points efficiency Sabine only needs to get used once or twice to be worth it. The fact that it's fairly easy for her to trigger 3-4+ times is what makes pure bombing lists effective. Note that they are still completely inefficient on Scum or Imperial... Agreed that part of that is K-wings/advanced SLAM, but part of that is definitely Sabine.

If you disagree, try flying triple K-wings without Sabine and see how far you get in comparison

People who complain about tactics as a sportsmanship issue are unsportsmanlike. Sportsmanship is more than being courteous to your opponent. It's promising to give the game your all, having enough respect for your opponent to make them work for their victory. Claiming that only some strategies deserve to be used is unsportsmanlike because you're attempting to restrict the ways your opponent can fight you to only terms that you approve of. In short, you think you deserve to say how and when your opponent is allowed to play and win. You think you deserve to give the final call on how the game gets to be played. You think you know better and are an authority over your opponent. That is the ultimate form of unsportsmanlike conduct.

YUB-SNARG... BLUB...

While I personally dislike fortressing as a tactic, it's not something we're seeing lists built around at this point. I think if we hit that point, then there is cause for concern. The regional video offers up a good example. He has a list that is built to fly normal with FCS on the findsman and tracers/chips on Leachos. That is totally different than something like....

Gand Findsman w/ Attani Mindlink (x2)

Gand Findsman w/ Attani Mindlink, Adv. Sensors

Ka'thos Leachos (or however you spell his name) w/ Stealth Device and Mindlink

If I saw something like that place in a corner, you know it's going to do that... every single game. I find there to be a distinct difference between a list that is built to fortress and one that is capable of doing so to counter something across the board.

If FFG wants to nerf castling, just make a rule that if two ships overlap on a third sequential turn, roll a red die and both ships suffer the effects... Continue this for additional sequential overlaps.

You could still castle, but you'd need 3 ships and some careful management

but if they do this, should also restrict Sabine to range 3 and roll back the cluster FAQ... Which was a cluster itself.

3 hours ago, Lobokai said:

but if they do this, should also restrict Sabine to range 3 and roll back the cluster FAQ... Which was a cluster itself.

Can someone explain to me what's wrong with the Cluster Mines FAQ? Cluster Mines were terrible before. Now they're actually played. Why should they be re-nerfed back to oblivion?

11 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

Can someone explain to me what's wrong with the Cluster Mines FAQ? Cluster Mines were terrible before. Now they're actually played. Why should they be re-nerfed back to oblivion?

Agreed. Cluster mines are actulaly playable now. I don't think they need any nerf.

19 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

Can someone explain to me what's wrong with the Cluster Mines FAQ? Cluster Mines were terrible before. Now they're actually played. Why should they be re-nerfed back to oblivion?

Because they lost to it.

16 hours ago, Razgriz25thinf said:

People who complain about tactics as a sportsmanship issue are unsportsmanlike. Sportsmanship is more than being courteous to your opponent. It's promising to give the game your all, having enough respect for your opponent to make them work for their victory. Claiming that only some strategies deserve to be used is unsportsmanlike because you're attempting to restrict the ways your opponent can fight you to only terms that you approve of. In short, you think you deserve to say how and when your opponent is allowed to play and win. You think you deserve to give the final call on how the game gets to be played. You think you know better and are an authority over your opponent. That is the ultimate form of unsportsmanlike conduct.

While I disagree with your definition of sportsmanship, the thread moved past that portion of the discussion several pages back. I get that people want to just read the original post of a thread, maybe one or two posts below it, then drop their opinion. In a thread which is multiple pages long, though, that approach can often end up adding nothing new to the discussion.

37 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

Can someone explain to me what's wrong with the Cluster Mines FAQ? Cluster Mines were terrible before. Now they're actually played. Why should they be re-nerfed back to oblivion?

Yeah, my main playing partner and I discovered the FAQ for Cluster Mines just a few weeks ago, after I first got a K-Wing and I discovered the Cluster Mines fairly useless. He flew over all three tokens in one turn and didn't roll a single hit (mix of blanks, focus and crits). It was...less than great.

Having watched that Fortress/K-Wing regional video, I'm definitely more on the "meh" side of fortressing. I still don't care for it, but I don't think it's all that intimidating. On the other side of the coin, I also wasn't very impressed with the triple K-Wings. It can be out-flown, with or without a fortress.

31 minutes ago, VanderLegion said:

Agreed. Cluster mines are actulaly playable now. I don't think they need any nerf.

They don't, but I'm always in favor of corrections that don't require either reading an FAQ (which a shockingly large amount of tournament players won't), or new cards/expansions that come out 10 months later and require $$ for an overcorrection.

Simply roll back a cluster mine FAQ and triple K drops to normal levels. It's a crazy easy fix and requires next to nothing to implement. Personally, I'd think a bomb token and card not getting used is about as minimal an impact as one could get.

@Sithborg you're better than a trite troll cheap shot. I've never lost to a 3k list. I'd had thought deleting a line of an FAQ to mitigate a linear play list and silly castling play at the cost of a chit could get thoughtful consideration instead of snide snobbery

28 minutes ago, Lobokai said:

Simply roll back a cluster mine FAQ and triple K drops to normal levels. It's a crazy easy fix and requires next to nothing to implement. Personally, I'd think a bomb token and card not getting used is about as minimal an impact as one could get.

If by normal levels you mean not played at competitive events, yeah, that'd probably do it.

38 minutes ago, Lobokai said:

you're better than a trite troll cheap shot. I've never lost to a 3k list. I'd had thought deleting a line of an FAQ to mitigate a linear play list and silly castling play at the cost of a chit could get thoughtful consideration instead of snide snobbery

You will pardon if I don't take the argument that something doesn't play how I think the game should be played as a serious balance issue.

On 2/13/2017 at 8:45 AM, gennataos said:

It's within the rules of the game for a soccer player to fall to the ground, acting like his knee exploded on the slightest bit of contact in an effort to draw a foul. Is it sporting, though?

It is neither sporting (since it's called out in the laws of soccer as "unsporting behavior" nor it it permissible without being cautioned and possible suspension in future matches.

I am a soccer referee; from youth, to college, to pro indoor.

FIFA Laws of the Game specifically call faking injury as a cautionable (yellow card) offense. Some leagues (including MLS here in the United States) have handed out retroactive suspensions for players that "dive" (the term used most in the US for faking a foul or injury to win an advantageous free kick).

Page 85 of the below link lists cautions for "Unsporting Behavior" as "attempts to deceive the referee e.g. by feigning injury or pretending to have
been fouled (simulation)."

http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/footballdevelopment/refereeing/02/79/92/44/laws.of.the.game.2016.2017_neutral.pdf

1 hour ago, Lobokai said:

Simply roll back a cluster mine FAQ and triple K drops to normal levels. It's a crazy easy fix and requires next to nothing to implement.

Except that you have now once again made cluster mines completely pointless to take. It is again, not just cluster mines that are the problem and to simply nerf them is a simplistic answer, and those seldom ever actually work well.

On 2/14/2017 at 1:45 AM, Joe Boss Red Seven said:

STAY.N AT HOME... OKAY'N AT HOME... AND OH WHAT A GADDAM JOY IT IS... TOOT-TOOT!

...Isn't it "doot-doot"? @Rytackletold me that's how you say it.

2 hours ago, Parakitor said:

...Isn't it "doot-doot"? @Rytackletold me that's how you say it.

NAH... BELIEVE YOUR STAR BRAH JOE JOE... TOOT-TOOT!

DAT...

5 hours ago, Sephlar said:

It is neither sporting (since it's called out in the laws of soccer as "unsporting behavior" nor it it permissible without being cautioned and possible suspension in future matches.

I am a soccer referee; from youth, to college, to pro indoor.

FIFA Laws of the Game specifically call faking injury as a cautionable (yellow card) offense. Some leagues (including MLS here in the United States) have handed out retroactive suspensions for players that "dive" (the term used most in the US for faking a foul or injury to win an advantageous free kick).

Page 85 of the below link lists cautions for "Unsporting Behavior" as "attempts to deceive the referee e.g. by feigning injury or pretending to have
been fouled (simulation)."

http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/footballdevelopment/refereeing/02/79/92/44/laws.of.the.game.2016.2017_neutral.pdf

That may be (is) all true, however it still happens all the time.

I'm not a soccer fan, but I've tried hard because so many of my friends are. I literally (literally "literally") do not recall ever watching a game that didn't involve somebody tumbling around in the grass with a grimace that says "I've never felt pain like this" only to pop up miraculously moments later.

This is a phenomenon that is exclusive to soccer in its frequency too. I've seen plenty of dives/"hamming it up" in American football and other sports but they usually give up on the act faster and don't take it to nearly the same level as soccer players.

I think it's the difficulty of policing what is real pain vs put on pain. Combine that with the fluidity of soccer strategy and stopping the game when at a disadvantage and you've got a recipe greatly in favor of reward over risk.

My (non-soccer knowledge having) solution is if you're down for more than say 30 seconds, there's a mandatory 10 minute "recovery time". If you're actually hurt, you'll need at least 10 minutes to get checked out and let the pain subside. If not, you're putting your team at a disadvantage unless you've got a deep roster. More risk, less reward methinks.