7 minutes ago, Lightrock said:

Bombs aren't too good, but Sabine is, especially with advanced SLAM. That is a problem that will need to be addressed somehow but again it's not like bomber lists started winning large tournaments left and right. They still do have bad matchups. It's their effect on the meta that worries me, as their sheer presence keeps many imperial ships away from the tables. I'm concerned about Kylo for the very same reason.

How is Sabine too good? It's one damage per turn and virtually no one uses that extra bomb slot. Is it because you can pick any enemy ship within range 1? I'd think Extra Munitions has more to do with making bombing lists good than Sabine.

34 minutes ago, Admiral Deathrain said:

Ehm, I can only speak for myself of course, but the Worlds final 2013 is what sold me on the game. This mesmerizingly beautiful dance of hypermobile Advanced Sensor B-Wings and Biggs versus the TIE swarm was something I just had to experience for myself. I don't think the slew of U-Boat matches that youtube had to suffer through at some point would have had a remotely similar effect.

I think I may have been slightly misunderstood. Certainly watching matches online pulls in new players. My point is simply that people are usually pretty clever and if the first exposure they had to this game was watching a fortress vs. 3k match they would likely sense something is bizarre about that game and watch others to try to see if it's the norm. If someone watches a single game of x-wing and it is the aforementioned match then assumes that it is typical of x-wing games then they were likely not all that interested anyway.

Additionally I'd like to point out it's usually easier to sell someone on something they're interested in by seeing 1 good game than to turn them away by seeing 1 bad game. Not always the case, but usually.

6 minutes ago, gennataos said:

How is Sabine too good? It's one damage per turn and virtually no one uses that extra bomb slot. Is it because you can pick any enemy ship within range 1? I'd think Extra Munitions has more to do with making bombing lists good than Sabine.

It's that one damage per turn that makes all the difference. There's a reason bomber k-wing lists never got off in the previous waves despite the fact that logically they should have. Before defenders, aces typically had 3 (interceptors) or 4 (inquisitor, phantoms) HPs . Rules for bombs were the same (except for clusters), yet we didn't see triple bombers nuking stuff left and right. Why? Because while they were probably capable of steamrolling imperial aces even back then, bombers simply didn't have the killing power to take out higher HP targets so they were very vulnerable to hard counters. Sabine turned ion bombs into a source od damage rather than a pure control tool. She made Conners have an actual bite and she made proximity and the new cluster mines potentially very scary. If you carry 4 bombs on board it makes a world of difference whether you can use them to deal 8 points of unblockable damage or just 4.

3 minutes ago, Lightrock said:

It's that one damage per turn that makes all the difference. There's a reason bomber k-wing lists never got off in the previous waves despite the fact that logically they should have. Before defenders, aces typically had 3 (interceptors) or 4 (inquisitor, phantoms) HPs . Rules for bombs were the same (except for clusters), yet we didn't see triple bombers nuking stuff left and right. Why? Because while they were probably capable of steamrolling imperial aces even back then, bombers simply didn't have the killing power to take out higher HP targets so they were very vulnerable to hard counters. Sabine turned ion bombs into a source od damage rather than a pure control tool. She made Conners have an actual bite and she made proximity and the new cluster mines potentially very scary. If you carry 4 bombs on board it makes a world of difference whether you can use them to deal 8 points of unblockable damage or just 4.

So Sabine crew is pretty much responsible for bombers going from niche to a powerhouse? Oh...huh...I've only run one bomber, so I never considered her text would apply to all friendly bombs, even ones dropped by other bombers. Seems to make her bomber the prime target, then.

Just now, gennataos said:

So Sabine crew is pretty much responsible for bombers going from niche to a powerhouse?

Yup. Bombers were never really a thing before Ghost. They started appearing at about the same time as jumpmasters, but the u-boat packs initialy kept them at bay. It was after the u-boat nerf that k-wings really took off.

Just now, gennataos said:

So Sabine crew is pretty much responsible for bombers going from niche to a powerhouse?

I'd say 80% Sabine crew, 20% cluster mines errata. Cluster mines going from doing an average of 0 damage per token to 1 damage per token is a big deal. Sabine pushing the damage up across the board also matters. In the past killing fenn rau (for example) with bombs took 4 connor nets or some lucky cluster/proximity mines. Now it takes 2 connor nets or 1 connor net and any other bomb which deals 1 damage. A single cluster mine also on average kills fenn now too rather than just being annoying and only hurting with some luck.

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.

Key Factors

• Sabine Wren
• Cluster Mines buff
• Predictable opponent flight patterns that cover a lot of table (/x7 Defender K-turns, Shadowcaster speedy greens)
• Hyperstacking defensive tokens making other squads inviable

Cluster Mines now deal 78% more damage than they used to if the opponent hits all three templates, and vs things like Defenders it's a lot easier to ensure they hit them.

To put it another way: spending 4pts on a Proton Torpedo with Focus/TL/Guidance Chips deals an average 0.9 damage to a Focus/Evade Defender. Spending 4pts on a Cluster Mine deals an average 4.0 damage.

Get over onto the extreme left or top of screen, hover at range 3 of one or maybe two ships, lose a couple of shields, next turn, 3 bank SLAM 3 bank, drop cluster mines on formation, repeat with second k wing, repeat with third k wing, etc.

I've played that list on Vassal, it's tough to get the approach vectors right, and I mistimed it and that was partly why I lost (the other part being repeatedly rolling a single hit or less on a focussed 3 die shot and failing to ionise the Findsmen onto rocks and into pointing the wrong ways), but by no means impossible.

3 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

Get over onto the extreme left or top of screen, hover at range 3 of one or maybe two ships, lose a couple of shields, next turn, 3 bank SLAM 3 bank, drop cluster mines on formation, repeat with second k wing, repeat with third k wing, etc.

I've played that list on Vassal, it's tough to get the approach vectors right, and I mistimed it and that was partly why I lost (the other part being repeatedly rolling a single hit or less on a focussed 3 die shot and failing to ionise the Findsmen onto rocks and into pointing the wrong ways), but by no means impossible.

Yeah, I really don't know what his plan was here. On that initial run, there was no focus fire nor focus bombing. I'm kind of baffled.

1 hour ago, nigeltastic said:

I'd say 80% Sabine crew, 20% cluster mines errata. Cluster mines going from doing an average of 0 damage per token to 1 damage per token is a big deal. Sabine pushing the damage up across the board also matters. In the past killing fenn rau (for example) with bombs took 4 connor nets or some lucky cluster/proximity mines. Now it takes 2 connor nets or 1 connor net and any other bomb which deals 1 damage. A single cluster mine also on average kills fenn now too rather than just being annoying and only hurting with some luck.

50% Sabine, 45% AdvancedSlam, 5% Cluster fix.

There's no bombs game without the Advanced Slam.

1 hour ago, gennataos said:

So Sabine crew is pretty much responsible for bombers going from niche to a powerhouse? Oh...huh...I've only run one bomber, so I never considered her text would apply to all friendly bombs, even ones dropped by other bombers. Seems to make her bomber the prime target, then.

Completely and utterly responsible. In large part because, like Manaroo another questionable card, there is no range on her ability. Without Sabine pure bomb lists would be at best a novelty, they'd still be good against low-HP aces and potentially high-HP no-AGI ships like the Ghost/Decimator. But simply wouldn't have the firepower to take on a full list of mid-HP ships like Defenders, Falcons, Lancers, or J5Ks. The K-wing is a good bombing platform due to SLAM but without Sabine increasing the overall damage from bombs by around 50-100% (in my experience) over the course of the game it's simply not top tier.

As far as her being the prime target, it's not at all simple to take her out against an even remotely competent opponent. First the setup will usually have the Sabine carrying bomber be otherwise the least attractive target. Second it will typically be held back during the initial engagement and attempting to force your way to it basically sets yourself up to get completely wrecked by the other two. Then even if you do manage to score some juicy hits unless you completely kill it then that K-wing will just SLAM away for the rest of the game (plus it's a bad idea to chase a bomber anyways...)

To the larger topic at hand, I get that fortressing is an NPE largely because it removes a key element of the game. But to be honest the 3 K-wing list is also an NPE largely because it removes a key element of the game. Neither of them is poor sportsmanship, the K-wing player has no more right to ask the fortressing player to fly straight into an unwinnable trap (and to be clear for some lists it really is effectively unwinnable) than the fortressing player has to ask the K-wing player to so they same. If fortressing becomes an effective tactic against a larger cross section of the meta then it deserves another look to see if something needs to be done about it, but as it is the situation feels more like poetic justice than something that needs to be fixed.

A list does not cut the mustard unless it has some annoying bull$^*! to it. Fortressing is annoying bull$^*! so it fits the competitive requirement for a list.

I personally despise it but I'm learning to accept it as part of the game.
If you can accept Dash Rendar and Kanan crew you can accept this as part of the game.

30 minutes ago, Makaze said:

Completely and utterly responsible. In large part because, like Manaroo another questionable card, there is no range on her ability. Without Sabine pure bomb lists would be at best a novelty, they'd still be good against low-HP aces and potentially high-HP no-AGI ships like the Ghost/Decimator. But simply wouldn't have the firepower to take on a full list of mid-HP ships like Defenders, Falcons, Lancers, or J5Ks. The K-wing is a good bombing platform due to SLAM but without Sabine increasing the overall damage from bombs by around 50-100% (in my experience) over the course of the game it's simply not top tier.

As far as her being the prime target, it's not at all simple to take her out against an even remotely competent opponent. First the setup will usually have the Sabine carrying bomber be otherwise the least attractive target. Second it will typically be held back during the initial engagement and attempting to force your way to it basically sets yourself up to get completely wrecked by the other two. Then even if you do manage to score some juicy hits unless you completely kill it then that K-wing will just SLAM away for the rest of the game (plus it's a bad idea to chase a bomber anyways...)

To the larger topic at hand, I get that fortressing is an NPE largely because it removes a key element of the game. But to be honest the 3 K-wing list is also an NPE largely because it removes a key element of the game. Neither of them is poor sportsmanship, the K-wing player has no more right to ask the fortressing player to fly straight into an unwinnable trap (and to be clear for some lists it really is effectively unwinnable) than the fortressing player has to ask the K-wing player to so they same. If fortressing becomes an effective tactic against a larger cross section of the meta then it deserves another look to see if something needs to be done about it, but as it is the situation feels more like poetic justice than something that needs to be fixed.

Now the everything you said, and replace "Sabine" with "Darth Vader crew"

7 minutes ago, balindamood said:

Now the everything you said, and replace "Sabine" with "Darth Vader crew"

Darth Vader has a downside. It is not the same.

Really? I put Vader and gunner on a tie bomber. Shoot at Corran Horn with stealth device, range 3, through a rock, MISS TWICE, and a 40-some point ship is off the board...and we want to complain about some limited crew with the damage output of crack shot triggering once per round only when someone flies over a bomb.

Not worth it.

1 minute ago, balindamood said:

Really? I put Vader and gunner on a tie bomber. Shoot at Corran Horn with stealth device, range 3, through a rock, MISS TWICE, and a 40-some point ship is off the board...and we want to complain about some limited crew with the damage output of crack shot triggering once per round only when someone flies over a bomb.

Not worth it.

How? Vader still has to chew through Corran's Shield.

3 minutes ago, balindamood said:

Really? I put Vader and gunner on a tie bomber. Shoot at Corran Horn with stealth device, range 3, through a rock, MISS TWICE, and a 40-some point ship is off the board...and we want to complain about some limited crew with the damage output of crack shot triggering once per round only when someone flies over a bomb.

Not worth it.

Few problems there, one gunner can't be put on a TIE shuttle, second, you're just plinking corran's shields

Nope. Deals crits under shields I believe. I stand corrected on the tie bomber, but you have at least three other platforms that combo works on.

Just now, balindamood said:

Nope. Deals crits under shields.

Nope. Deal critical damage... not a faceup card. Hits the shields.

1 minute ago, balindamood said:

Nope. Deals crits under shields.

Do you mean Kylo Crew?

Edit: If so, you'd still need to land a critical damage to trigger Kylo crew.

You are right. Not dealt. Nothing to see here. Nevermind.

2 minutes ago, balindamood said:

You are right. Not dealt. Nothing to see here. Nevermind.

This is not the case you're looking for, move along

45 minutes ago, balindamood said:

Really? I put Vader and gunner on a tie bomber. Shoot at Corran Horn with stealth device, range 3, through a rock, MISS TWICE, and a 40-some point ship is off the board...and we want to complain about some limited crew with the damage output of crack shot triggering once per round only when someone flies over a bomb.

Not worth it.

How are you getting gunner on a tie bomber?

edit: I'm a slow poster on a slow phone.

4 minutes ago, Lobokai said:

How are you getting gunner on a tie bomber?

The thought was probably by using the TIE Shuttle title while ignoring the restriction on crew cost.

Otherwise knows as ignoring why you don't see Palpatine flying around in a TIE bomber.