9 hours ago, heychadwick said:

There are 9 Imperial Only crew (non-epic).

There are 22 Rebel Only crew (non-epic).

You could also say there is a whole slot of Astromechs that are Rebel Only, as well. They are the only faction that can take them. There is not an upgrade that is specific only to the Imperials.

Also....the Imperials have ONE EPT.

The sad truth with that is that out of I don't know how many astromechs only 2-3 are really worth using.

2 hours ago, Marinealver said:

Well as of now Rebels already have the most upgrade cards available. Also add to the fact they have the only ship that can take 2 EPTs at the same time which help keeps the A-wing coming back to the meta despite it being only 2 firepower.

So rebels are sitting very good on the upgrade card front. Imperials on the other hand, their situation is improving with the coming of the TIE Agressor but the Scum which came out 6 waves later has already passed them up on available upgrades.

All tho scum is way behind in pilotos. We need big time packet of aces for Kihraxz, Starviper. Ywing, z95 and so on.. There is no upgrade cards that can fix that.. :/

18 hours ago, Zazaa said:

All tho scum is way behind in pilotos. We need big time packet of aves for Kihraxz, Starviper. Ywing, z95 and so on.. There is no upgrade cards that can fix that.. :/

I expect that to be corrected when the other scum special releases are out. The C-ROC is bringing 4 new pilots to Scum. Rebels and Imperials have had 5 ships re-released through Huge ship and repaint expansions. I expect the second huge ship and the scum aces to bring Scum up to 4 ships with alternate paint jobs.

7 hours ago, clanofwolves said:

FFG's efforts have been way more than a success, they've created THE power faction above all others. With my new FennBoats list, I can easily win most of my matches with seemingly little effort in relation to my previous mental output needed to win with my squads. It seems it has put most X-Wing lists under its heel even before the dice really start rolling.

If you're correct LunarSol --and I think you might just be-- FFG must have been extremely guilty to do what they did with the Jumpmaster and its subsequent Mindlink upgrade. It makes pre-nerf Palp and Autothruster Aces seem way over-costed.

The way I see it (I might be totally wrong, as I have 0 game design experience):

The power level of X-wing releases follows a bell curve. FFG aims for a power level but, as they are not perfect, stuff lands a bit above or below the target level.

The competitive meta however is made up of FFG's 'mistakes', stuff that lands as much as possible above the average.

Since Scum was lacking in competitive options, FFG couldn't just say 'well guys, sucks to be you. But you know what? Hang tight 1-2 years and by then you'll probably have some options better than average'. So they deliberately tried to design some above average options for Scum.

11 hours ago, terrymac94 said:

Seriously!

Imperials got ruthlessness (would've been kinda cool if Rebels could've used it too, seems like the card effect was made for them), ...)

Whut? Rebels coming in, guns and cannons blazing hitting everyone indiscriminatingly, even their own troops? Sounds not really like Rebel faction, maybe more like Saw Gerrera's guys.

Although FFG decided lately that Rebels also can equip the upcoming Arc caster cannon, strangely enough.

@RufusDaMan The formation flying sounds interesting, and fitting to the imperial theme. But would need quite some playtesting, to ensure this is not overpowered, as Imp have soo many ships with fantastic dials.

I for one welcome the fact that I do not have to buy any scum ships (maybe apart from the starviper) to keep my imperial babies functional.

8 hours ago, JayDestroyaC said:

The sad truth with that is that out of I don't know how many astromechs only 2-3 are really worth using.

I don't play tournaments, but I'll dispute that.

• R2 Astromech
• R4-D6
• BB-8
• R3-A2
• R2-D2

That's just the ones I see from tournaments. I think there are others that have good uses, too, but I don't see on many tournament lists.

Man, Rebels are the last faction that are in need of more options. They have the biggest toolbox in the game.

Hell, Rebels and Scum have their own faction-specific upgrade slots. Imperials do not. I'd gladly trade Ruthlessness for an entirely unique set of upgrades that the other two factions couldn't equip.

9 minutes ago, heychadwick said:

I don't play tournaments, but I'll dispute that.

• R2 Astromech
• R4-D6
• BB-8
• R3-A2
• R2-D2

That's just the ones I see from tournaments. I think there are others that have good uses, too, but I don't see on many tournament lists.

Add to this M9-G8, R5-P9, and even R2-D6 (usually on Jess). Many Rebel astromechs never play, but they have more than enough that do.

Astromechs ARE generally pretty terrible, fwiw. Whether its 3/16 or 5/16 they are generally pretty poor. A lot of the perception just comes from the fact that they are almost always disappointing new releases. Outside of BB8, the newest Astromechs on that list are from 2014.

1 minute ago, defkhan1 said:

Add to this M9-G8, R5-P9, and even R2-D6 (usually on Jess). Many Rebel astromechs never play, but they have more than enough that do.

Yeah, I like those, too. Throw in R7-T1, as well. You just don't see them in tournament lists as much. I'm trying to be conservative when it comes to "competitive" thoughts.

Man....I'm starting to wonder about R7-T1 on an ARC-170 now.....

1 hour ago, LunarSol said:

Astromechs ARE generally pretty terrible, fwiw. Whether its 3/16 or 5/16 they are generally pretty poor. A lot of the perception just comes from the fact that they are almost always disappointing new releases. Outside of BB8, the newest Astromechs on that list are from 2014.

You could say that about most upgrade slots though. Out of the 39 EPTs in the game, <10 see any sort of competitive play.

I would have thought a bigger complaint regarding parity would have come from the lack of generic EPT Rebel pilots. The Rebels I play against are quite jealous of all the generic EPT pilots the Imperials have but I always point out.... Astros are on a lot of Rebel fighters instead. While I don't play Rebels competitively I find the Astros are amazing in HotAC and so have to agree with @heychadwick and @defkhan1. Plus with Integrated Astromech you get an extra shield on the X-Wing! You can't lose with those little guys/gals!

1 hour ago, defkhan1 said:

You could say that about most upgrade slots though. Out of the 39 EPTs in the game, <10 see any sort of competitive play.

Definitely true. I think the bigger issue is just that Astromech releases never feel like they're an attempt to be competitive. Rather than "fixing" anything, they've all been kind of released as duds until something else later takes advantage of them, like Poe or the BTL-4 upgrade. The only universally powerful one, IMO is really R2D2. The others are situationally powerful, but nothing that makes a ship itself exciting by virtue of having an Astromech slot if that makes sense.

Hopefulness (rebel only EPT)

Star Wars was built on Hope. And so is your defense. Hope for evades on your green dice. You may reroll any and all blanks when rolling defense dice.

21 hours ago, joeshmoe554 said:

I'm thinking the Auzituck will come with a Rebel only EPT titled Selflessness, in the same spirit as Ruthlessness for the Empire and Fearlessness for Scum.

Unless the card ends up looking different than the one in the spread I don't think the card you are referring to will be a Rebel Only EPT name Selflessness. It doesn't look like there's enough room on the card for the name of it to be Selflessness. Selfless seems about the right length. It also doesn't look like it has enough room for both "Small Ship Only" and "Rebel Only".

22 hours ago, terrymac94 said:

@heychadwick & @Rinzler in a Tie I see your points, so allow me to alter the question slightly;

What would be a good Rebel Only ept?

(unique EPT) "Death Star Plans" At the end of the Deployment step, assign the condition card "Hope" to this ship. (2 points?)

(unique Condition) "Hope" When attacking or defending, you may reroll 1 of your blank results. At the end of the activation phase, you may assign "Hope" to another friendly ship at Range 1.

17 hours ago, clanofwolves said:

The Rebels have so much synergy, it's nuts really. Pair those synergies with Regen, Slam, Sabine, etc? I think they have quite the extensive toolbox; probably the best overall toolbox.

Keep in mind I wasn't calling for a "fix" for Rebels, but instead thought it would be interesting/cool to come up with a 'Rebel Only' ept to make the game more fun. Not more dominant for Rebels.

I know a lot of Imperials have had it rough in this meta, and being a Rebel player I can honestly say I too don't like Biggs, Ghost, or Miranda Sabine. They just aren't fun to fly or play against.

When the new tlt ties come out, it's likely that they'll dominate the meta, but in the meantime a lot of Imperial players I know/have seen are fighting the good fight until then and doing pretty well with Defenders (a guy just won a charity tourney about a week ago with a tie/fo, phantom, yorr list).

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Aside from blocking (which was difficult to pull off consistently and/or effectively), other factions had had a frustratingly difficult time dealing with token stacking, auto thrusting arc dodgers (which made up the majority of Imperial lists being flown).

Thus the invention of cards like tlt came about, making pilots like soontir or whisper a non auto-include.

I rather liked the abilities of pilots like Marek, Carnor, Juno, and Rexlar. These pilot abilities stepped away from arc dodgers being determined "competitive" solely on how many game-breaking amounts of tokens they could stack. Some of these pilots like Carnor have been used well in my meta.

Their abilities were entered around things like special damage effects, re-positioning, or close radius debuffs for enemy fighters. This is what I hope future Imperial expansions will work to make more competitive, and attractive to the average Imperial player wanting a high PS ace in their builds.

13 hours ago, JayDestroyaC said:

The sad truth with that is that out of I don't know how many astromechs only 2-3 are really worth using.

Yeah, and out of those most are exclusively used to keep super expensive ships alive long enough for the point cost to be worth fielding Rebel small based, higher PS ships in the first place.

While the majority of Scum 'agromechs' seem to be competitive enough to use on both high PS "aces", and lower PS cheap ships, while being super affordably costed.

Well im pretty sure that there is "rebel only" EPT in next wave..

Im still so anxious to get more pilots for scum, they are the salt of the game, they mean more to me than any of the upgrades.

13 hours ago, Zazaa said:

All tho scum is way behind in pilotos. We need big time packet of aces for Kihraxz, Starviper. Ywing, z95 and so on.. There is no upgrade cards that can fix that.. :/

Uh, scum y's with tlt's and green 3's are good. They don't need to be "caught up" with anything. Neither do Scum Z's, they make fantastic munition carriers with an illicit slot to boot (*cough, cough, glitterstim with GC, cough).

Agree with ya about the Kihraxz and Starviper though. Be great to see those on the competitive tables.

5 hours ago, Zazaa said:

Im still so anxious to get more pilots for scum, they are the salt of the game, they mean more to me than any of the upgrades.

If whatever the ship shooting at Roark were released, that alone would convince me to play Scum

It's usually been kind of an Easter egg kind of thing FFG used to do where they would hint at future releases through card art, so fingers crossed

How about this for a Rebel EPT:

Impossible odds

If you are outnumbered when defending, you may re-roll any blank results. Then receive a stress token.

Point cost (?)

4 minutes ago, rubberduck said:

How about this for a Rebel EPT:

Impossible odds

If you are outnumbered when defending, you may re-roll any blank results. Then receive a stress token.

Point cost (?)

How would you determine outnumbered mechanically? Inside the arc of more enemy ships than there are friendly ships at range 1-3?

Just now, HammerGibbens said:

How would you determine outnumbered mechanically? Inside the arc of more enemy ships than there are friendly ships at range 1-3?

I was thinking ships on the field, but firing arc might be a better way. What do you think?