While I would have liked to see more diversity hit Top 16, I'm very pleased with the way the game is developing. The new wave this week is going to introduce some additional diversity to a trait that was sorely lacking, and the wave after looks like it's going to make a big splash for Force Users and perhaps brawlers.

I think what we saw at worlds was, as it was last year, a disproportionately large number of players bringing a safe and consistent list. While the Rebel and Imperial figures introduced in Jabba's Realm require different lines of play than we are used to in order to work, the Merc units (particularly the Weequays) played a much more straightforward game of building up focus for an explosive round 2. The few matches I watched on stream it seemed like everyone was playing extremely cautiously and not pushing their opponents very hard when they got an advantage. I don't know if the swiss rounds played out similarly, but that was my observation.

30 minutes ago, Crabhand said:

The few matches I watched on stream it seemed like everyone was playing extremely cautiously and not pushing their opponents very hard when they got an advantage. I don't know if the swiss rounds played out similarly, but that was my observation.

If you wanted to get into the top 16 you'd play that way. A couple of games nobody even fired a shot until the 2nd round. I never opened a single door in all games. Got knocked out at 11th place. All opponents I faced had Gideon/3PO/Jabba/Elite Weequay variation except for RyanJamal as he already mentioned, great guy.

My list didn't have no pirate scum, but it's still scum:

Temp Alliance, 3PO, Gideon

Jabba, Black Market

Bossk

Elite Gammorean Guards

Onar Kona

Vinto

Paul has had a beard for a while, yes.

(But so does Corey.)

On 5/7/2017 at 7:55 AM, brettpkelly said:

The fact that the new merc characters (ig88 and maul) are coming pre- focused is a nerf the Gideon and 3p0 care package.

Maul if you choose.... you can focus him and choose his other attack option.

On 5/7/2017 at 8:59 AM, Jarema said:

I think that one possible solution would be to limit Temporary Alliance to non-unique cards... but then it would be nearly usless, wouldnt it?

With elite Jawa not sure a nerf like that would do much.

Elite Jawa's ability is restricted to Droids and to the mercenary faction.

I don't think Temporary Alliance is needed for very long with all the new figures coming, but I don't understand how their existence reduces variation? If people play weequay lists, wouldn't banning Temporary Alliance reduce the options and not increase them? You would be 'forced' to include Jabba.

What banning Temporary Alliance would do, is make armies more thematic, and open up design space due to removing some interactions that need to be cared for when designing.

I think the over saturation of scum in the top was a byproduct of how many scum there was vs the field and just how overpowered Weequays are when they have easy access to focus. When you are talking about 7 points for 2 figures that can shoot a minimum of 7 (or 5 if you get no surges, and your opponent rolls a surge kill) and an 85% or better chance of hitting for at least 5 damage (approximate considering rerolls). And that doesn't include the wave of cards that pump that. And if they are running Jabba + Black Market, they will have at least seen / access to / in hand if they didn't play one ---- 7 cards. (start with 3, jabba draws one, black market draws one, one normal draw, one from terminal). Could be as high as 10, if they run black market command card and use Jabba to draw a card as an early activation.

With Jabba and still having access to 3p0 thanks to elite jawa even if they nerf temporary alliance, it won't affect the access to multiple focuses per round. Either the power level of the game needs to come up to that standard or the weequays will need to be brought down to the level of the game.

I am generally happy with the current state of the game and it's direction, but, it is a little out of balance at the moment.

On 5/7/2017 at 6:41 AM, ryanjamal said:

I'd like to chime in and say that Rebels are still doing just fine. I ran a Luke and Obiwan list (one of the few without rangers). I was a die roll away from the top 16 cut, losing my last match 39-40. Jedi Luke is less consistent than the hunters for the most part, but he generally does his work (and is a blast to play). I saw a respectable minority of players with rangers and Luke lists here.

The imperials had a respectable minority as well, with most people starting with a core of Terro and eJets, but the rest of their lists were somewhat varied. And as pointed out above, Imperials are about to get a huge boost (we're about to see the end of Rogue One played out on the board again and again). All that is to say, I think the meta is in great shape. The spoiled cards all feel like they'll be competitive without becoming auto-includes. Each wave is broadening the pool of viable lists and centerpieces. I think we're headed in a great direction :-).

-ryanjamal

Hey Ryan just curious, what was your Rebel list without Rangers?

I saw a few interviews where guys said they were originally planning to run rebels but the Jabbas Map rotating in and Landfill rotating out really nerfed Rangers so they switched it out last minute. I really, really don't like that JR map.

4 minutes ago, a1bert said:

Elite Jawa's ability is restricted to Droids and to the mercenary faction.

I don't think Temporary Alliance is needed for very long with all the new figures coming, but I don't understand how their existence reduces variation? If people play weequay lists, wouldn't banning Temporary Alliance reduce the options and not increase them? You would be 'forced' to include Jabba.

What banning Temporary Alliance would do, is make armies more thematic, and open up design space due to removing some interactions that need to be cared for when designing.

I agree completely with what you are saying, my point is that they can still get 2 focuses a round.

1 minute ago, FrogTrigger said:

Hey Ryan just curious, what was your Rebel list without Rangers?

I saw a few interviews where guys said they were originally planning to run rebels but the Jabbas Map rotating in and Landfill rotating out really nerfed Rangers so they switched it out last minute. I really, really don't like that JR map.

While not Ryan, I'll add in my 2 cents---- I still like the Rangers, even on the new map, especially if you really pay attention to line of sight. there are a couple of places you can shoot some pretty long shots.

So, uhh...

Anybody read about the cheating at World with X-Wing?

There's like a 17-18 pg thread started this weekend about a player cheating, and people are mad .

I love how chill IA tends to be, but I totally get their frustration.

I've browsed it a little. I haven't seen the video myself, but, if it's as blatant as people claim it to be, said player needs to be banned at least a year IMO.

2 minutes ago, NuSair said:

I've browsed it a little. I haven't seen the video myself, but, if it's as blatant as people claim it to be, said player needs to be banned at least a year IMO.

It is pretty blatant, but the penalty was only a match loss in the proceeding round and a warning.

What did he do?

7 minutes ago, subtrendy said:

So, uhh...

Anybody read about the cheating at World with X-Wing?

There's like a 17-18 pg thread started this weekend about a player cheating, and people are mad .

I love how chill IA tends to be, but I totally get their frustration.

IA is "pretty chill" that because a lot of the framework for the match is very difficult to cheat.

Your Weequays are only moving 0-4 spaces when they activate if you plan on shooting with them, or 0-8 if you don't. I can sit there and consider the possibilities.

The same way, line of sight is line of sight. If you're planning on dashing someone across the board to safety, you can quickly look at the grid and see if there's a nice hidey hole for them to duck into or not.

There isn't a lot of guess work with moving things around the board and things being in arc, range 1, hitting an obstacle, overlapping, etc.

The only deck of cards is your command deck, and doubling up on a 1-of card like Assassinate "might" help you out by drawing into it sooner, but it'll also work against you when you draw the next one, as that's a dead card now because playing it would give your cheating away. You might get away with it against a very new player, but any close scrutiny or an experienced player would stop that cold.

You could also put more than 15 cards/points in your command deck after you submit the list, but again, more cards will ruin the overall distribution which you don't want, and overcosting your totals might also get you caught if your opponent looks closely.

So messing with your command deck isn't as easy as messing with your damage deck in X-Wing, where a lot of the cards get played face-down anyways, so your removal of Critical Hits or other conditions that specifically hurt your list can go unnoticed.

The only way to truly correct for this is a full deck audit before every match, HOWEVER, while this works for X-Wing, part of IA is the proverbial tricks up your sleeve that the Command Deck provides. If your opponent knows you're not running Grenadier in your Trooper list (for some reason), then they'll be less concerned with bunching up their units. Sometimes its the threat of card plays that your list implies that informs your opponent's actions. Taking that away would make the game less fun.

Of course you could always rig your dice somehow, distract your opponent to look away while you switch a piece around, etc, but I feel like that kind of corner case cheating is possible in any table top game you would be playing anyways.

Ultimately we're protected, by the nature of the game, from a lot of the shady behaviours I've seen go down at X-Wing events.

Also, the design team is actively working towards bringing all the recognizable, iconic, but un-playable heroes from the early releases back into competitive play, so you've got that over X-Wing too.

Hard to imagine playing a Star Wars game where running Luke Skywalker or Darth Vader would work to your disadvantage, right?

I was lucky enough to make the Top 16. I played an aggressive non-pirate version of Scum mostly focused around Brawler's with some hunter redundancy:

2 x Elite Gamorrean

Shyla (w/Crumb)

Onar

Greedo

Alliance Smuggler

3PO

Temp Alliance

It plays well on most of the current maps. I lost in Swiss on both of the camera missions (superior players didn't help) and then to Paul in the Top 16. The command deck was a mix of Hunter boosts with extra attacks from the brawler cards (Pummel, Parting Blow). Amazingly enough, I didn't get to play Extra Protection the entire tournament.

I dropped Jabba for Onar for extra offense and trying to gain an edge in the support points for offense trade off.

I also switched out Vinto for Smuggler/3PO and was very pleased with the performance there. Opening the doors so my units can rush into position for round 2 became increasingly important through playtesting and the smuggler would perform that duty and then hold the terminal or drop to objective hunting to reclaim his points most games.

Picked up the dial of his last ship and fiddled with it before placing it back onto the table just before revealing it.

https://clips.twitch.tv/SparklyFantasticCrowBrainSlug

1 minute ago, FrogTrigger said:

What did he do?

He had Dial Upgrades on his dials, and while his opponent was activating their ships, he picked up the dial for his HWK (which you're not supposed to do without asking permission from your opponent first, once Activations have begun), thumbed the dial over to a different move, confirmed he made the adjustment, then proceeded to activate the HWK and fly to safety.

Well that is brutal.

2 minutes ago, FrogTrigger said:

Well that is brutal.

There are only two times I've ever had anything weird go down while playing IA;

We had a guy in our meta that played the most excruciatingly slow IA you've ever seen, and it seemed to be in service of slow play/points denial to run out the clock. Last time I had to play him, they called 5 minutes left in the round (meaning we'd played for an hour) and we were just wrapping up the second round.

Maybe he's just caught in an analysis paralysis loop, but a premiere tournament requires you to get with the program and make some decisions.

Since the scoring was changed, I've been to a few tournaments and haven't seen him since. If he's reading this, I hope he's gotten some help for his AP and will join us again for some exciting, interactive IA play.

The other eyebrow raiser was actually the other day at IA day 2. My opponent realized he had an extra copy of a command card in his deck when he drew it at the end of Round 1. He showed me what happened, we got a Judge to come by and audit the deck to ensure that it was otherwise correct, and he just lost the draw for that instance.

I highly doubt that was anything more than an oversight, as it was the first game of the day and he called it out immediately as it happened, so I didn't really care, we just kept going with a time extension. Ultimately, as I stated above, doubling up on a card like that wouldn't help him in the long run anyways, as it would just lead to exactly what happened, which is getting a dead card.

If my opponent form that game is reading this now, know that I am still immaturely amused at the "performance anxiety" your Luke figure seemed to be experiencing with his lightsaber. The pic I snapped may be considered NSFW so we'll all just use our imaginations.

Also, Agent Blaise is a great tool for keeping your opponent's hand honest. Just sayin'

That's great that your opponent was honest and admitted his clearly unintentional mistake, @cleardave

1 hour ago, subtrendy said:

That's great that your opponent was honest and admitted his clearly unintentional mistake, @cleardave

100%

There are a lot of fiddly components we need to shuffle around from table to table, never mind if you're using map tiles and not the printed mats.

I had an opponent go on a manhunt for his Temporary Alliance because it went missing between our game and the last. It's going to happen to somebody at some point in an event that big.

All you can try to do to mitigate it is to take that couple of minutes after the match, audit your board and make sure your 15 cards are there, deployment cards, game tokens put on the board, etc.

Of course if your game went to time, then you need to pack up fast because the next round is going to be posted as soon as they have your data, which is how these things can happen.

The best practice in the event of an error is to just stop everything, get the Judge to come over and decide how best to return the game state to proper order, get your time extension, and carry on.

I mean, heck, what's to worry about right? If they're not going to disqualify an actual blatant and malicious cheater from Worlds, then your honest mistake should certainly be nothing to worry about.

On 5/7/2017 at 5:55 AM, cleardave said:

Let me weigh in on this with another patented long-winded response.

First, before we talk about list diversity, let's talk about some more tangible barriers of entry to this game that will stop new players from coming in long before you even talk to them about the meta, unplayable units, overpowered units, etc.

I'm referring to the actual dollars and cents cost to buy in. It's a Core Set, The Bespin Gambit, and Jabba's Realm at least, just to have the basic components of tokens, doors, dice, and the requisite map tiles for the current rotation.

If you don't live in the USA and thus don't have ready access to some deep discounting, the cost of this "Starter Set" i mentioned above is probably affordable, even if you set aside some cash for a few months, to most players, but it's definitely a larger investment than an X-Wing Core Set and a key ship or two.

Consider then, what the "IA Starter Set" leaves you with in terms of figures and options. You only have 1 of each elite, so for some popular non-unique units like Elite Weequays or Elite Stormtroopers, you're going to need to either borrow that extra deployment card, double up on a box set, trade or go to the secondary market to purchase it.

Consider also, that all those lovely unique figures that aren't Rebel campaign heroes are also going to need to be bought, so unless you want a list that features Gideon, Vinto, Shyla, and Onar, you're going to need to do some shopping;

C-3P0, Jabba the Hutt, Bossk, Agent Blaise, IG-88 (and a Jawa Scavenger to get the "fix" card), Luke Skywalker Jedi Knight, Leia Organa, Captain Terro, Greedo, Obi-Wan Kenobi, The Grand Inquisitor, the Bantha Rider (which I realize is a non-unique but it's in its own pack and definitely a worthy addition to your collection), and Kevin Bacon.

I might be missing another very useful unique or two that you can build lists around or with, but you get the idea.

So you spent the money to get those three boxes, and now you're setting down to list build. You don't want to spend $500 collecting all the things for a game you don't even know you like, so I guess you start out with Gideon, Temporary Alliance, Vinto, Onar, Shyla, Elite Weequays and that's already a good start and looks suspiciously like this alleged scourge of Weequay "sameness" that's going around...

Anyways, once you have spent what you're going to spend, you've made your list, you've gathered your components and it's off to the big tournament! Now you realize you have to burn game time setting up these blasted map tiles under the gun. Thankfully there is a solution; you can casually get pre-made maps from image files a kind community member has produced, or you can spring for the official FFG maps.

Regarding the maps, I really love the FFG mats a lot for being able to roll out and lay flat. The quality is great and I would prefer playing on these over a poster board or on the original tiles any day. BUT, there are some drawbacks that are practical as well, and also a big negative for prospective newcomers; they're $25 US each, and they rotate.

So right away you need to buy the current 3 maps, knowing that one will cycle out in about 4 months time to be replaced with a new map. If you've decided that this isn't an issue for you, then get ready for another one because (and this feeds into a bigger problem with Imperial Assault) FFG doesn't sell Imperial Assault product directly from their website. You'd have to get them from FFG's Event Center(sic) or through your local distributor by way of your FLGS (from experience, this is a huge pain in Canada and a side effect of attending Worlds for IA the last two years was getting these maps), or scour the Internet looking for them when the new map is released. It takes a while for all the online retailers to get their stock, due to the Print on Demand process and the fact that stocking the mats itself is not appealing for the store because their demand will drop off eventually when the map rotates out and becomes dead inventory.

So yeah, I think there are many more barriers of entry into Imperial Assault that have little to do with the Weequay scourge.

In fact, I would argue that the Weequay scourge is just the first wave in a series of waves that will broaden this game out even more, and I couldn't be more excited. Let me explain that one too;

The Bespin wave really started the template for right-sizing the distribution of materials, mainly deployment cards that was lacking previously. Remember, this is also a campaign dungeon crawl and these boxes will wear both hats indefinitely. There will be no "upgrade" packs for skirmish. Your stockist already has to merchandise about 40 SKU's for this game and doesn't want to clutter up their shelves any more than needed.

So beyond distribution of deployment cards, we see with Bespin the beginnings of releasing units that are all for the most part playable in Skirmish, which is the paradigm I'm looking at this whole discussion through, leaving campaign aside. They also dropped in some great Spy cards that make that trait a blast to play with.

The scoring for tournaments changed so you get individual figures now and lame points denial NPE play disappeared. We can interact again!

Jabba's Realm comes out and releases even more goodness into the game along with command cards for Hunters and Smugglers that also allow those traits to properly "arrive" in IA.

What this did was temporarily push the Weequays up to the top of popularity because Hunter and Smuggler cards work on them, as well as combos like Strength in Numbers to really get a lot of mileage from those guys. The sky isn't falling though because this is a short blip on the journey. I would agree that it incentivized players to run Weeqs and to a lesser extent, Alliance Rangers, but it's not hard to see why when building a command deck is a struggle for some players.

Right now you just make that Vinto/Shyla/Onar/Gideon/Elite Weequay core I mentioned above, plug in those new Hunter/Smuggler cards into your command deck, fill out the rest of your list/deck and you'll probably do alright.

What would have helped Worlds diversity A LOT would have been getting this mini wave out in time instead of just after, but if you forget about Worlds as the be-all-end-all of play for a minute, you'll realize all is well.

So the new mini wave comes out and the Droid trait is fleshed out, and IG-88 has been resurrected to join the game as a series unit.

I also forgot to mention that FFG quietly made "Force User" a useful trait along the way with the Inquisitor/Obi-Wan/Jedi Luke packs.

Now with Heart of the Empire, and this is just my speculation based on what I saw previewed, Force Users will be a viable template for all 3 factions, as Vader gets fixed, and can roll with Palpatine and the Inquisitor for Imperials, Mercenaries get "Old Maul", and Rebels add Ahsoka Tano to their ranks. I'll assume at least one or two command cards for generic Force User use (possibly faction locked) will be added beyond the obvious unique cards for Ahsoka/Palpatine/Maul.

The Sentry Droids for the Imperials will surely get some use out of their Droid trait. More Trooper-trait units that I'll curse FFG for making me paint, and another scummy mercenary unit to jump on those existing command cards.

I also saw a new Brawler card, and maybe more will be in there to bring that trait up to speed with the rest of the top picks.

But what of that low-rent AT-ST that's in the box? Could be get something in there that makes massive vehicles a thing? That might be too hopeful, but we'll see what we get when the box gets here.

To wrap up, you can now make great lists built around Spy/Hunter/Smuggler/Force User/Droid/Creature traits. It's not everything, but I think there's a good foundation in there. FFG is moving this game into a broader list building world, but the initial onboarding cost of this game will be a tough sell for some new players, and the budget conscious will gravitate towards what will be effective and inexpensive to both play and purchase. This will certainly lead to a sense that only a certain build is "the meta" which is technically true, but consider that a new player has to build this collection of plastic toys from the ground up, versus an early adopter like myself that just picks up a box every now and then to stay current.

Next week the Droids packs are officially available. The Store Championship season will have its meta shuffled accordingly. You will still see Weequays. But you will also see Droids. You may see players moving on to try other things for fun.

When Heart of the Empire comes out, you will see a lot of Darth Vader, because he's about as iconic as it gets for this game. He will be effective, and will win games, but he will not be unbeatable with the tools that will be available to a savvy player. You will still see Weequays.

It's fine.

Stellar post Cleardave. I was baffled by all of the negativity towards the "merc meta". The game is super healthy right now and looks to be getting even better. Yes, most of the top players used a merc list, but they were not identical by any means, which can happen in many games. Also, as a player I am totally noticing how close the games are now since the points scoring fix. This game excites me. So with that, campaign, and 4 player skirmish (everyone needs to try this as it's like a whole other game), this game has to be the best value in the world! And if you happen to love painting like me (newbie but started with this game), it's like four things in one.

I totally agree that the map issue is clusterfk. Setting them up while your neighbour is already starting their round on their mat is ridiculous and bad for the game in my opinion. They should absolutely NOT rotate a map in until it's released worldwide. This makes no sense and is embarrassing. That or somehow they should at least make sure that there are NO common components among maps. Yeesh!

Otherwise. It's fine. Everything's fine.

10 hours ago, FrogTrigger said:

Hey Ryan just curious, what was your Rebel list without Rangers?

I saw a few interviews where guys said they were originally planning to run rebels but the Jabbas Map rotating in and Landfill rotating out really nerfed Rangers so they switched it out last minute. I really, really don't like that JR map.

I ran Jedi Luke, Obiwan, Lando, eSabs with targeting computer, Gideon, C3PO, and an Alliance Smuggler. I really like the list, though it has the inconsistency of white dice and the swinginess of Jedi Luke. It's a lot of fun to play.

I plan on posting a full report (well, not as full as Brett's :-) ) after I catch up with all the work I neglected last week.

-ryanjamal

3 hours ago, NeverBetTheFett said:

Stellar post Cleardave. I was baffled by all of the negativity towards the "merc meta". The game is super healthy right now and looks to be getting even better. Yes, most of the top players used a merc list, but they were not identical by any means, which can happen in many games. Also, as a player I am totally noticing how close the games are now since the points scoring fix. This game excites me. So with that, campaign, and 4 player skirmish (everyone needs to try this as it's like a whole other game), this game has to be the best value in the world! And if you happen to love painting like me (newbie but started with this game), it's like four things in one.

I totally agree that the map issue is clusterfk. Setting them up while your neighbour is already starting their round on their mat is ridiculous and bad for the game in my opinion. They should absolutely NOT rotate a map in until it's released worldwide. This makes no sense and is embarrassing. That or somehow they should at least make sure that there are NO common components among maps. Yeesh!

Otherwise. It's fine. Everything's fine.

I think the main issue was that yes they were all 'different' merc lists, but different by 2 deployment cards in most cases. In most cases it was just 2 pirates or 1 pirate 1 gamorean lol.

Someone in the chat listed all of the figures used in the top 16 and it was something like 20% of the total deployment cards in the game. Think about that, 4/5's or 80% of the games deployment cards went unused. Now to ME, that is not a healthy meta.. but maybe there is an argument against? So I understand the droid wave and the future waves are going to fix this, absolutely, but the point many were making in the stream chat is that it was an unhealthy representation of the game, a game that had a lot of diversity last year at worlds. It was a huge step back, not the players fault, but still a step back. We had a lot of people popping in asking about the game, seeing how gross the diversity was and then leaving. It's just unfortunate is all because it isn't like we are at Destiny or X-Wing levels of players as is.. Nobody is blaming the players for choosing mercs. But I think credit is due to those who decided to 'break the mold' and go outside the curve basically knowing full well they were at disadvantage going in.