4 minutes ago, draco193 said:

I will say the Imperials do have a chance to add some of the Mercs heavy hitters with temp alliance to add versatility. Taking a pair of eWeequay Pirates with the Inquistor gives a solid core group with all the nice hunter cards, and room for either some spies or troopers. eGamos and Vinto could add some toughness and fire power as well to a Terro trooper group.

I never thought of using the Temp Alliance to add in Hunters to help out the Inquisitor and to take the most benefit for the sweet command cards! That is amazing to just think of the new possibilities.

I want to thank brettpkelly for making this post because it does seem to confirm the thoughts that I had with lists and command cards that I have played against. I just want to put a point on here that these are all viable currently with the current rotation of maps; when the new rotation comes out we shall see if it might not bring other units back into the fold or to push more units out of viability.

PS. I can not wait to get BT-1 and Jawas! I will make Droids viable!

33 minutes ago, draco193 said:

I will say the Imperials do have a chance to add some of the Mercs heavy hitters with temp alliance to add versatility. Taking a pair of eWeequay Pirates with the Inquistor gives a solid core group with all the nice hunter cards, and room for either some spies or troopers. eGamos and Vinto could add some toughness and fire power as well to a Terro trooper group.

I have been tinkering w/ a build that has eWeequay Pirates & the Grand Inquisitor. The challenge has been drawing cards; Hunters need nearly all their Hunter cards available to hit hard enough. My latest attempt is gonna have eWeequays and Jabba; despite Jabba not able to focus anybody else but the eWeequays, he'll still draw a card per turn or get more with the command cards Planning or Single Purpose AND he'll give that extra VP for every kill.

whoops, double post

Ya I've also tried to fool around with some builds that don't have Jabba because of his severe restriction but you're right its really hard to play the hunters to their full potential without the cards, also I know it seems like common sense but a focused pirate is so much more effective.

Inquis

E. Pirate

Cap Terro

E. Jets w/ Targeting Computer

Vinto

R. Officer

Temp Alliance

Zillo

With this combo you've got some serious fire power but not a ton of support, you are basically hoping to blitz the enemy with a very fast offense, but again unless you can dominate the terminals you are going to have a tough time cycling cards outside of being lucky with Planning near the top. However if you drop Vinto and Targeting Computer, Jabba slides right in and all of a sudden you've got an extra card per round, one of your Pirates is focused and you are getting an extra point per kill which seems more effective.

15 hours ago, brettpkelly said:

The only problem with pulling in Weequays is there's no way to focus them so some of their potential is lost.

What about taking Jabba with them?

2 hours ago, Jarema said:

What about taking Jabba with them?

That's an option, but that means just one fighty Merc group and seriously hampers Jabba's utility, since half of his stuff works with Mercs exclusively.

I'd disagree Pirates have no Focus capabilities in Empire. Between Stimulants, Inspiring Speech, Primary Target and um, Focus, we now have quite a large suite of Focusing cards that are faction-agnostic. You can deliberately build a deck around focusing your Pirates.

it's worth noting they hit pretty hard without focus anyway as well, they're great with it, but what isn't!

I've been playing my "Pirate Captain" list:

Terro (Feeding Frenzy)

Dewback x2 (1 Feeding Frenzy)

eWeequay x2

Officer x2

Rule by Fear // Zillo // Temp Alliance

With a good amount of success, I'd be happy to put it against most lists with a reasonable chance of winning.

"Possibly" not quite top tier, and I think I'd rather take one of my scum lists to a tournament (Luke is too swingy for me, he'll lose you games as well as win you them) however it's right in the mix for consideration (As is the same list with ePigs and minus the second officer)

Decent article though thanks Brett, a good read and most of those I would say are pretty accurate atm. My only concern is that new players read this and only try those units, as you can make pretty much anything work to a reasonable extent if you build around it. Having said that, it's a good attempt at summing up the top end of competitive play (With a nod to what bucker00 siad, in that a lot of competitive players atm are probably just trying out the new stuff and therefore yes, it's winning because it's new)

3 hours ago, RoyalRich said:

it's worth noting they hit pretty hard without focus anyway as well, they're great with it, but what isn't!

What isn't indeed? Actually, I found Gammoreans to be lackluster Focus targets unless you really really want/need that Cleave to go off. With 50% chance for a surge, 50% chance for 2DMG and 16% chance for no DMG whatsoever, combined with the extra Accuracy, I find that you get most bang for your Focus buck with ranged figures that have access to multiple Pierce/Damage surge abilities, and Pirates tick all of those boxes on top of having access to defense die re-rolls.

21 minutes ago, player1750031 said:

Actually, I found Gammoreans to be lackluster Focus targets unless you really really want/need that Cleave to go off. With 50% chance for a surge, 50% chance for 2DMG and 16% chance for no DMG whatsoever, combined with the extra Accuracy, I find that you get most bang for your Focus buck with ranged figures that have access to multiple Pierce/Damage surge abilities, and Pirates tick all of those boxes on top of having access to defense die re-rolls.

I think we're all on the same page here. RoyalRich was talking about pirates

Yea completely, I normally don't focus my Gamoreans very often at all. It is sometimes a decent option if you want the cleave, but most of the time you just want the RR with a re-roll for a decent chance of 5-6 dmg.

The Weequays were what I was saying don't really "need" the focus a lot of the time, they will of course hit harder and further with it, but they're fine without.

Other targets lackluster with focus off the top of my head are Boba or Terro, with limited surge options and that are very likely to end up with excess surges

On ‎3‎/‎6‎/‎2017 at 1:01 PM, brettpkelly said:

Summary

In Summary the state of the meta is this:

• Imperials are the weakest faction. Terro and eJets are mandatory.
• Rebels have a couple viable variations on one list which includes Jedi Luke
• Mercs have dozens of viable lists. They all have their merits and I'm not sure there is one "best list". They all play completely differently too, not like the variations in rebels which play basically the same.
• Besides Luke, Hunters have the best command cards in the game. Rebels have the rangers to use them. Mercs have many good units that can use them. Imperials can keep running troopers and weep, or keep running spies and hope to negate them, but neither option is great.

Feel free to challenge any of the assertions I've made here! I'd love to get some different takes on the current state of the Meta.

-Brett

Looks like the top 16 followed my meta predictions pretty closely! I really think Mercs got played a lot because of the variety and consistency within the faction, and because of the access to the strong hunter cards. Devious and Black market are really good too. That said, in the top 16, there were I think 15 unique lists, with only the 8 activation Kansas list being a replica.

25 minutes ago, brettpkelly said:

Looks like the top 16 followed my meta predictions pretty closely! I really think Mercs got played a lot because of the variety and consistency within the faction, and because of the access to the strong hunter cards. Devious and Black market are really good too. That said, in the top 16, there were I think 15 unique lists, with only the 8 activation Kansas list being a replica.

I gotta agree with you here. I've read comments this week from folks that saw 15 lists were Scum and made assumptions about the content of those lists. Out of 10 games, I fought against a lot of Scum and personally never faced a mirror match or any duplicates. I think it is that variety that let each list play differently. Something as simple as swapping Vinto for Onar changes the whole tempo of the squad, for example.

If there were a few different deployment cards between lists thats great.. if that is what we define as variety then that is fine. But it's still really sad that 15/16 were merc, it shows a huge imbalance. I'm not saying we didn't see it coming or that hunters weren't due, but it doesn't make it OK. Hunters got their time in the sun now we can HOPEFULLY get some more balance.

One key thing I have noticed though, those who were at the tournament argue about the diversity, those who weren't all complain about it. The sad part is the majority of players WEREN'T at the tournament and those are the people we are trying to rope in and hook and use to grow our player base. So whether there was actually diversity or not, it's still a loss overall for the game and a step back in terms of growth and meta development :/ BUT we can still recover, good things are on the horizon.

All that being said, I am surprised they didn't use Heart of the Empire to give the Imps some valid hunter figures to utilize those cards. BT-1 will help but that's just one figure.. From what I can tell so far from that wave it looks like Brawlers/Guardians are going to get the most love. Like, the Mercs at least have their wing guard, as crappy as they are, to utilize trooper cards.. the Empire literally has what, one other hunter? Inquis? Maybe the plan is to make Royal Guards great again! If this last World Championship is any indication they seem to be regressing back towards 4x4.. I KID I KID!!

One thing is for sure though the players did a hell of a job representing the game, every post, review, interview, game play matches showed great sportsmanship, positive attitudes and a real passion for the game. It really appears to be a healthy and vibrant player base. So well done on that front.

I'm actually okay if all the factions don't have even representation of the traits throughout, it keeps things different. I'm surprised there wasn't more variety as well as I think the Jabba's Realm brought some really strong pieces to all the factions.

11 minutes ago, DerBaer said:

Rerolls are great. Stormtroopers had them (when being adjacent) and dominated the meta for a long time. Now they got nerfed at every aspect (new scoring rule, Reinforcements, Jabba, etc.), then Mercs got Weequays, HKs, Gamorreans with rerolls (without being adjacent or anything) ...

Troopers had some strong cards like Grenade, but they needed some skill (positioning or something). I've done 20+ damage with one grenade myself due to bad positioning of my opponent. Hunter Cards like Assassinate are not stronger than that, just more versatile, because it does need no action, no special positioning and can be used by any figure of a hunter squad.

Troopers were strong with Zillo, so the Empire gets no further access to additional cards. Rebels have e.g. R2, but this comes at certain cost. Jabba with Black Market just sits back and generates cards at no real cost.

Focus was always strong, but a little bit restricted (when another Trooper dies, adjacent, LoS). Jabba has no such restrictions.

The single aspects of the hunter lists are not really stronger than anything else, each is just a little bit more versatile. But when you add the little bonus in versatility of every single aspect, you get overpowered lists.

For years, there are cries of overpowered doom with every new release, I told everyone that these cries were wrong (except for 4x4), and most often I was right. In this case there needs something to be done (like with 4x4). The current state of the meta is just bad for the game. Mercs need less skill skill to be played good. Skilled players like DT can make them so great, that no other faction has any chance of winning.

Maybe the upcoming Droids will change that a little bit, but with the Jawa (Scavanged Stock), i think the new Droids (and old Droids with new Cards) are best with Mercs.

So I suppose a question now is how do we rebalance the meta so that Rebels and imperials have a closer chance?

also, do we still feel the errata to royal guards, imperial officers and rebel saboteurs are still warranted?

I get the feeling they don't really get played much at all anymore?

Posted about this just earlier today in the Boardwars discord channel. I think the Guard and Sabs could both be reverted back to their original shape and be playable without causing too much havoc. They would both be strong units but not on a level that would damage the state of the game.

Officers are another story altogether. 2 points is too cheap IMO to give some units another full action on their turn even if it is only movement.

4 minutes ago, TheUnsullied said:

Officers are another story altogether. 2 points is too cheap IMO to give some units another full action on their turn even if it is only movement.

I had the same thought exactly

On top of that it's a whole activation in itself which is useful for stalling and they can use leader command cards and be an easy unit to tap for Take Initiative.

It's good, that Royal Guards don't protect each other. The rest of the nerf is not neccessary anymore.

It's good, that eSabs don't Blast(4)...

14 hours ago, DerBaer said:

It's good, that Royal Guards don't protect each other. The rest of the nerf is not neccessary anymore.

It's good, that eSabs don't Blast(4)...

I agree on that. I think the speed should be changed back though.

2 hours ago, squirrelfox said:

I agree on that. I think the speed should be changed back though.

Was the speed ever changed?

3 hours ago, Majushi said:

Was the speed ever changed?

not eSab, rSab speed did got nerfed from 5 -> 4

On that point though I think rSab should remain speed 4. One of the biggest complaint about pre-nerfed rSab was that it's a really good + cheap glass cannon

On 5/13/2017 at 7:49 PM, TheUnsullied said:

On top of that it's a whole activation in itself which is useful for stalling and they can use leader command cards and be an easy unit to tap for Take Initiative.

That would be ALMOST as over powered as a unit that can give a full movement action AND focus (Both from LOS!! lol) AND has a decent attack AND use all the same command cards for 1 more point

Difference is Gideon is unique, I get that.. but still.

Thankfully, Gideon only gives out 2 movement points otherwise he would be bonkers for 3pt.