Just now, Voitek said:

You could just put Inertial dampeners for some high level poker play - are you gonna do 14 forwards or full stop?

That does seem like a good move actually.

7 hours ago, Vitalis said:

- Harsh, requires Mana to fly in team, but i feel it nerfed Dengaroo more than Parattani, but hell my arcdodgeing Ghost and Deci are way more happy to fly vs clumped Parattani then the one that can spread sheetwide over the board. I also like it cause now you have no reason to include Mana as she is. You either give her P1 now or swap her entirely for another combat oriented Attani carrier.

-X7 - perfect one. Harsh but hell they were nobrainers with those evades. Tie/D for the win now!

-Zuckuss - i like it very much. Still good but not another auto-use-nobrainer. Now you have to play around using Zuck.

-Palpi. And here they went over the top. And i don't mean new effect - cause its still nice and could be powerfull, but thats not 2-slot, 8 point card anymore. Cost should be reduced. Either 5points, 1 slot or 3-4 points with 2 slots.

But overall i like it. It will bring balance to the fo...eee...meta.

- I don't think this is overly harsh. Dengaroo would have like been removed from the meta just from the zuckuss nerf. A R1 restriction will at least have some effect on Parattanni which would otherwise have come out of this pretty unscathed. Fenn having 2 free focuses in addition to his own action was pretty ridiculous. I probably would have rather seen a small points increase across the board for the jumpmaster but this also works for me.

- Agreed

- Agreed

- Agreed that it's probably overkill but it's been a while coming and I'm glad to see it.

To all those upset by the increase in pen and ink changes in this FAQ:

Errata sucks. It is annoying to own cards that no longer contain accurate information. Nobody likes it when their current list becomes less powerful because of some updated .pdf file on the interwebs. But, consider the alternative. If FFG is not willing to make these changes, X-wing will die much more quickly than you might believe possible. Yes, your Palpatine card is not worth as much as it was a week ago. If enough players leave the game due to poor balance, your Palpatine card will be worth zero moneys.

With that said, I would very much like to see an effort made to get updated copies of some of these cards into players' hands.

This faq needs a better name. How bout "Bringing law and order to a wretched hive of scum and villainy", or maybe, " Suck us Zuckuss" or my favorite, " Dengar wants a divorce"?

14 hours ago, Jeff Wilder said:

See, you can call it an "increase in variance" if you like, and that's true from a certain point of view. But the most skilled Palpatine players knew when they were going to need and use Palpatine 90% of the time anyway. It was sometimes purely reactive, but not always, which means that, for skilled players, it's not that large a change.

The change will affect those rare unexpectedly bad rolls in a game, and it will likewise affect those rare unexpectedly good rolls in a game (i.e., you declare a Palp-evade, but roll three natural evades). That's a change, and it will have an effect, which is exactly what I said: it takes a very, very strong card, teetering at the top of "balanced," and knocks it down firmly into the bottom half of "balanced."

But it's still balanced, and just not that big a change from any perspective except "showings at high-level tournaments." If that's your only metric, sure, call it a huge change. But that's not my only metric.

EDIT: And, BTW, I'm saying this from the perspective of someone who is on record as saying I don't think Palpatine needed a nerf. But I'm fine with this nerf for two reasons (in addition to my assertion that it's not a big change): (1) Not everybody twigged to the fact that you simply must kill the ******* Lambda, especially since there was, IMO, a concerted misinformation campaign advising the exact opposite, and (2) even if every player figured that out, it really is unfortunate that one card constrained the strategy against a list archetype to "exactly one right way."

Huh? The entire point of pre-nerf Palp was to shore up bad rolls and reduce variance. You couldn't possibly know when you were going to need him because you didn't know ahead of time what your dice roll was going to be. Sure, you had some idea ahead of time if a roll was one you might want to use Palp on if it goes bad, "I could finish this ship off if all my dice do damage" or "I need full evades to not die" as extreme examples, but you didn't actually know if you'd need to use him until the dice hit the table. That flexibility and reactiveness was the power, being able to fix a bad roll on demand once you know it's bad is really strong. It's a guessing game now, and it's most definitely a not a small change. You can argue there wasn't a lot of skill involved in using Palp before, but adding variance by definition means there's less skill involved in his application now. How much of an impact it will have remains to be seen but I'm not sure Palpatine is powerful enough anymore to hold up his own archetype.

Adding variance doesn't mean reducing skill, it just moves the skill to how best to manage the variance.

Adding risk creates more challenging decisions.

5 hours ago, LordBlades said:

Apart from x7, everything else seems rather lazy anfto me.

These nerfs seem to me to be something like 'these cards are dominating the meta. Let's smash them and see if, when the dust settles, people are happier' and not 'let's rebalance these cards with the goal of still keeping them as meaningful options'

Manaroo and Zuckuss will disappear, but Defenders and Palpatine are still good and the players who were good with them will still be good with them.

8 minutes ago, Otacon said:

You can argue there wasn't a lot of skill involved in using Palp before, but adding variance by definition means there's less skill involved in his application now.

Wow that's some flawed logic there.

Having to know ahead of time when you're most likely to need him means it takes less skill? The change didn't add more variance, it made it so you no longer had perfect information on when to use him, which is why it took no "skill" to use him, because you knew as a fact if using him was a good idea or not. Now you no longer need to do that so you need to be better at reading the board state, predicting future events and knowing how vital that die roll is to make the best use of him. This inherently requires more skill then deciding after the fact.

I don't think even Manaroo and Zuckuss will disappear, they still have their place and are both still costed very effectively for what they do.

Apart from specifically Dengaroo I think all the lists using these cards still work, they just work less easily, less risk-free. You will still see A LOT of /x7 Defenders, you will still see Manaroo, you may even still see Party Bus, just waiting for the right time to use Zuckuss not on every green dice because lolz.

Imagine I am a player and I play against Palp defenders. I used proper positioning, maybe intel'agented one of the defender's maneuver, or ionised him on the previous turn. I certaintly put a lot of effort to actualy set up a decent trap to make 3 of my ships to shoot at this defender. That is a favourable situation - I probably have 80-100 points shooting at 35 (defender) backed up by 30 (palpatine). Defender is fully tokened and palpatine is ready to intervene.

with the old palpatine... you would really have very decent chances of not getting a single damage in this turn. Despite me investing 50% more resources; despite me executing good trap, despite me having my own tokens. Defender is likely to get one decent evade roll with 1-2 eyeballs to spend focus token, and two average evade+eyeball+blank rolls. With Palpatine and evade token, you just need to wait for this one bad roll to happen to at least mitigate the incoming damage a bit.

New palpatine though, would force you to actually make a decision. Declare him early? Wait for enemy to roll 2-3 crits to reduce its impact? Wait for Defender to loose its shields first? Or maybe push my luck and keep my palpa switch for offence, when the Defender will be tokenless? These are some actual choices & risk you have to take based on number of ships attacking you, their firepower, potential damage you might deal shooting back... Many, many factors involved which you have to take into consideration. Not just "roll and see what happens".Maybe it's Bossk shooting at you and you see this crit coming for increased damage? Negating it would actually count as 2 extra health for defender not just one!

This is a good change I reckon. It is rewarding skillful decision-making based on the situation assessment. I really like it. (disclaimer: I'm pure scum and I dont play any other faction, ever ;)) So my opinion is obviously heavily biased.

11 minutes ago, Stay On The Leader said:

Apart from specifically Dengaroo I think all the lists using these cards still work, they just work less easily, less risk-free.

If you make something hard enoigh, or risky enough, you won't see it played competitively much, regardless how good it might be when the stars align and you pull it off.

9 hours ago, Marinealver said:

the fact now you need more than the card is troubling and going to bring a whole mess of clutter in what was once a simply elegant table top game.

9 hours ago, Mep said:

..... or they can offer a way for people to get correctly worded cards.

9 hours ago, jspoto said:

, they need to provide some opportunity for en-masse replacement, IMO.

9 hours ago, Mep said:

Yes, the game should play in its original purchased state, without user printouts, cell phone checks for the current card reading or what have you.

And a hue and a cry go up for new cardboard!! X-Wing Revised is gonna need to be a thing. . .

My only gripe with the Emperor nerf is that it was the first double slot card, precisely for its combination of limitless range and versatile functionality.

Now that it has been brought in line with the other 'normal' cards I simply cannot find a justification for it taking a double slot. I may understand the high cost since the effect is still more or less powerful, but IMO, the double slot is no longer justified at all.

I'd rather just have an official app that lets me play using digitally updated cards, personally.

9 hours ago, TBot said:

Need pictures. Preferably not with u naked also in the tub...

Don't worry, I just make sure the ship is discretely placed. It will need to be an Epic ship, though, cuz, ya know.

8 minutes ago, LordBlades said:

If you make something hard enoigh, or risky enough, you won't see it played competitively much, regardless how good it might be when the stars align and you pull it off.

Agreed entirely, but I think these changes don't cross that line. Good stuff is still good.

Manaroo got hit the hardest, she's no longer a unique support ship and just 'Contracted Scout: Collectors Edition' but when you get over what she's lost she's still decent value for the points.

6 minutes ago, Jehan Menasis said:

the double slot is no longer justified at all.

Except to limit what TYPE of ship he can be in. The Emperor riding shotgun in a Phantom is just not right.

I'm fine with most changes.

- Palp is fine, however this is where I'm sad that FFG has a policy of not changing point costs. I think he needs a point reduction for the change. Other than that, I think he will be ok.

- X7 feels juuuust a bit too much. I would have been fine with one of the changes (no token if overlapping, or make it an action), but both restrictions feels sliiiightly too much. Still think they will be good, just sad to see the Empire's one small based ship that wasn't allergic to stress become allergic to stress. Meanwhile, R2-D2 still can regen on a bump...

- Manaroo and Zuckuss got nuked from orbit...Dang...

Disclaimer: I am primarily a rebel player (although X-Wing has taken a serious backseat to Armada), so these nerfs don't affect most of what I run anyway (except letting me actually try some different lists that won't be annihilated instantly).

The only nerf that I think went a little too far was Manaroo. Range 1 is a bit harsh.

Other than that, I really don't get the anger over people wanting refunds or kvetching that stuff is unplayable now or you wasted X dollars. Ever since the phantom nerf we have known that FFG is willing and able to make corrections to pieces that dominate the competitive market or skew the meta too much. And also, people bought multiple jumpmasters and raiders to netlist in a game that has developed a history of nerfing some broken stuff. That was your call. Not to mention, the Raider still came with some great stuff for the Advanced, Palpatine is still good (but maybe a little pricey), Manaroo is still very useful (as is Mindlink and Dengar), X7s are still phenomenal but require some planning to use (go figure), and Zuckuss is a one point card for christs sake! And even then, you just have to watch out for stress or mitigate the stress somehow.

Come on people, the sky isn't falling, and this is good for the game.

29 minutes ago, Stay On The Leader said:

Agreed entirely, but I think these changes don't cross that line. Good stuff is still good.

Manaroo got hit the hardest, she's no longer a unique support ship and just 'Contracted Scout: Collectors Edition' but when you get over what she's lost she's still decent value for the points.

That's how I feel about Manaroo too: it will largely be taken for the JM5k chassis. What I doubt is how often will her nerfed ability be worth the 2 point premium over the Scout.

Zuckus: nuked from orbit. For ships that can't ignore stress, Zuckuss is largely unchanged. If it was any good without ignoring stress, wouldn't we have seen him before on such ships?

Palp: Palp lost one very good and annoying use: reducing dice variance by correcting a poor roll. Without this, I'm not sure it's worth 8 points and 2 crew slots anymore.

I guess Scumsters should be glad they didn't put a range one restriction on Attani too.....the laminations of their women would be unbearable.

....wait a minute. No, actually their women would have cries of joy as they get more quality time with their men.

6 minutes ago, clanofwolves said:

...the laminations of their women would be unbearable.

31 minutes ago, LordBlades said:

Palp: Palp lost one very good and annoying use: reducing dice variance by correcting a poor roll. Without this, I'm not sure it's worth 8 points and 2 crew slots anymore.

I've always been of the opinion describing palp as a reduction in dice variance is something of a misnomer. What Palp actually is is most of the time is an additional 'floating' defensive token.

i.e my Fenn shoots at Soonir (with stealth device) at range 1 and gets 5 hits. Soontir rolls [evade, evade, focus, blank], adds his evade token and spends palpatineand take no damage, yet Soontir's roll is still statistically better than average. Equally if Soontir rolls (blank, blank, blank, blank), that's still a crap roll, its just one evade better than it would be without Palp.

It's not reducing dice variance (in the same way that something like an accuracy corrector does) it just shifts the green dice goal posts closer to where the imperial player wants them to be.

1 hour ago, VanorDM said:

Wow that's some flawed logic there.

Having to know ahead of time when you're most likely to need him means it takes less skill? The change didn't add more variance, it made it so you no longer had perfect information on when to use him, which is why it took no "skill" to use him, because you knew as a fact if using him was a good idea or not. Now you no longer need to do that so you need to be better at reading the board state, predicting future events and knowing how vital that die roll is to make the best use of him. This inherently requires more skill then deciding after the fact.

The statement highlighted in bold is objectively false. If there is now guesswork and predictive analytics where there previously wasn't any, then there is an increase in variance.

The second part of your argument is subjective. You knocked his argument in the debate by claiming his argument was logically flawed and then responded in kind with flawed logic.

It's subjective to say that changing him from the precision tool that he was to the poker-odds player that he is now takes more/less skill. He's different. Stay on the leader made a statement about saying that the skill has moved which I think has merit.

At the end of the day, as a player that likes as little variance as possible in a competitive environment, I'm dissatisfied with the change. That's my opinion. I think he might be over-costed now. I don't know yet, I haven't had time to examine the data. He's still a good card, and hopefully well on his way to becoming balanced.

Related to some other posts I've seen - I don't think it's worth getting really upset over, but people should have the right to an open debate about the card and whether or not they think he's worth it.

Palpatine's change isn't tremendously significant in the situation where he was powerful. The reason he works is because the 100 point game has so few attacks per turn (minimized further in an arc-dodgey aces list) and a group of green dice has such a high chance of a failure that he was extremely reliable extra defense result.

What's mostly lost is the ability to get lucky early and translate that to a success later. Essentially it makes it easier to chew through his token, but that's still relying on getting shots on the model to do so. Probably the biggest loser is Wampa, who lost the ability to get a free chip in if you lucked out defensively and needed an outlet for Pappa-Palp near the end of the combat phase.