Went to a store champs yesterday and I was pretty keen to check out lists as this was the first time I'd been to a comp that ran with the FAQ changes and Wave 6. A few things I took note of:

1) Most fleets sat on 4 activations and most didn't include more than 1 flotilla. One fleet had 2 and one had 3 out of the 11 players.

2) Sloan was pretty popular, Leia was non existent...

3) There were a few hammerheads being popped into otherwise traditional fleets but nothing wierd with heaps of them.

4) The Quasar was super popular...

5) The average number/points in squadrons was lower than usual and we've often had a squadron heavy meta. I don't remember seeing a single reikan or Rhymer anywhere.... Not sad about that.

6) Avenger ISD's were super popular. Lots of them in the Sloan fleets for that combo and a few running with the boarding troopers loaded up so that you can do a massive alpha strike with them followed by an avenger volley in the face. I expect this combo will see some table time in the future too... Most players doing this were just dropping a token to activate the boarders.

So overall to me it was super interesting and quite fresh. If I'm being honest I think the FAQ has done more to reset the meta in my area than wave 6 has and I'm really glad for it.

10 minutes ago, beefcake4000 said:

Leia was non existent...

3) There were a few hammerheads being popped into otherwise traditional fleets but nothing wierd with heaps of them.

How are those two

11 minutes ago, beefcake4000 said:

super interesting and quite fresh

?

my friend played a tournament saturday and still went with his usual MC30 spam with Rieekan and still won the tournament. He said the nerf was kind of harsh though, as on one round he lost a ship, then he lost the ship rieekan was on so it instantly died. TO ruled out that the first ship still kept the RIeekan effect though, so there's that.

He was pretty happy with the Hammerheads. He used 2 and said they were good bait for the opponent. It let him use his MC30s more effectively.

2 hours ago, beefcake4000 said:

Went to a store champs yesterday and I was pretty keen to check out lists as this was the first time I'd been to a comp that ran with the FAQ changes and Wave 6. A few things I took note of:

1) Most fleets sat on 4 activations and most didn't include more than 1 flotilla. One fleet had 2 and one had 3 out of the 11 players.

2) Sloan was pretty popular, Leia was non existent...

3) There were a few hammerheads being popped into otherwise traditional fleets but nothing wierd with heaps of them.

4) The Quasar was super popular...

5) The average number/points in squadrons was lower than usual and we've often had a squadron heavy meta. I don't remember seeing a single reikan or Rhymer anywhere.... Not sad about that.

6) Avenger ISD's were super popular. Lots of them in the Sloan fleets for that combo and a few running with the boarding troopers loaded up so that you can do a massive alpha strike with them followed by an avenger volley in the face. I expect this combo will see some table time in the future too... Most players doing this were just dropping a token to activate the boarders.

So overall to me it was super interesting and quite fresh. If I'm being honest I think the FAQ has done more to reset the meta in my area than wave 6 has and I'm really glad for it.

I wouldn't read TOO much into that, personally. Store championships are all about experimentation, since you can usually hit more than one. For instance, I rarely fly imperials, and haven't flown an ISD since Wave 3, but said why not, and did a Sloane/Avenger list. Sloane is a top-tier Imperial admiral, but herself, the Quasar, and the Hammerheads just released, so of course they will be all over the place. I feel like the resurgence of imperial popularity us due to having a great admiral, and great Vic upgrades. After reassessing my own Sloane/Boarding Troopers/Avengers list with four activations (which I took 1st with), I wondered if turning the quasar into two flotillas wouldn't improve the efficiency. I am thinking it might, but also might make the ISD weather more fire. The Fayetteville SC did have a 7 activation list with 4 hammerheads, which took 4th.

I'm really sad about Leia. Sure, she's on par cost-wise with Tarkin, but to me that just screams that Tarkin is way overcosted. At 30 points I may have considered her, but not at 38 when you have way more cost-effective admirals that can help with survival or boosting offense. I think at this point I'd take Sato over her, or even Garm, as the effect can be similar, and you still get to use other tokens. And what I hate about that is it is Leia, so I really wanted her to be a good admiral.

I think if you are playing with big ships you need to factor in sloan and avenger. Otherwise you are simply not going to have use of your defences. To me that means passive things like blast doors, and adding intel officers (always good but now almost mandatory if you want to compete on damage). Avenger pulse tap has gone from a quite complex to achieve to pretty straight forward.

4 hours ago, Ophion said:

I think if you are playing with big ships you need to factor in sloan and avenger. Otherwise you are simply not going to have use of your defences. To me that means passive things like blast doors, and adding intel officers (always good but now almost mandatory if you want to compete on damage). Avenger pulse tap has gone from a quite complex to achieve to pretty straight forward.

I think that's correct. I would also say Targeting Scramblers, Lando, and Derlin might see a surge in popularity.

On 7/9/2017 at 8:03 AM, Caldias said:

I wouldn't read TOO much into that, personally. Store championships are all about experimentation, since you can usually hit more than one. For instance, I rarely fly imperials, and haven't flown an ISD since Wave 3, but said why not, and did a Sloane/Avenger list. Sloane is a top-tier Imperial admiral, but herself, the Quasar, and the Hammerheads just released, so of course they will be all over the place. I feel like the resurgence of imperial popularity us due to having a great admiral, and great Vic upgrades. After reassessing my own Sloane/Boarding Troopers/Avengers list with four activations (which I took 1st with), I wondered if turning the quasar into two flotillas wouldn't improve the efficiency. I am thinking it might, but also might make the ISD weather more fire. The Fayetteville SC did have a 7 activation list with 4 hammerheads, which took 4th.

I'm really sad about Leia. Sure, she's on par cost-wise with Tarkin, but to me that just screams that Tarkin is way overcosted. At 30 points I may have considered her, but not at 38 when you have way more cost-effective admirals that can help with survival or boosting offense. I think at this point I'd take Sato over her, or even Garm, as the effect can be similar, and you still get to use other tokens. And what I hate about that is it is Leia, so I really wanted her to be a good admiral.

So I liked this because I very much agree that theres only so much you can take from Store Champs. Store Champs is experiment season, especially one week after the drop. That said, between the errata's and the new jazz I've noticed my listing has been shook up some, and thats good. Although admittedly, I haven't been looking for the new hotness as much as what would be fun to fly.

But so far what I've seen from Leia has been surprisingly encouraging, although I would agree that she does still seem a little too expensive for what she gives you. I do think that, at least so far, shes the one of the best options for the Hammerhead, over Cracken and Mothma who i assumed would work out better. Which isnt to say you cant use them, just I think the ship likes Leia more.

Just now, Madaghmire said:

So I liked this because I very much agree that theres only so much you can take from Store Champs. Store Champs is experiment season, especially one week after the drop. That said, between the errata's and the new jazz I've noticed my listing has been shook up some, and thats good. Although admittedly, I haven't been looking for the new hotness as much as what would be fun to fly.

But so far what I've seen from Leia has been surprisingly encouraging, although I would agree that she does still seem a little too expensive for what she gives you. I do think that, at least so far, shes the one of the best options for the Hammerhead, over Cracken and Mothma who i assumed would work out better. Which isnt to say you cant use them, just I think the ship likes Leia more.

I agree with that, as the imperials just had a ton of more stuff become viable, both due to the nerfing of their obvious tools and having new ones added to the toolbox. Much more is fun to fly.

I would be really interested in your thoughts on Leia on the Hammerhead! I haven't used her, but @WuFame is using her in our CC (proxied), and he pulled out all the tricks he thought worked well (Liberty title, Salvation title, Nav Teams, etc.) and was a bit underwhelmed, if I recall correctly, but didn't have access to Hammies either. Are you using CFs with her task force, mostly? Or doing speed change shenanigans? I think what really kills her for me is not being able to use another token, so it does make sense that a Command 1 ship is where its at for her.

30 minutes ago, Caldias said:

I agree with that, as the imperials just had a ton of more stuff become viable, both due to the nerfing of their obvious tools and having new ones added to the toolbox. Much more is fun to fly.

I would be really interested in your thoughts on Leia on the Hammerhead! I haven't used her, but @WuFame is using her in our CC (proxied), and he pulled out all the tricks he thought worked well (Liberty title, Salvation title, Nav Teams, etc.) and was a bit underwhelmed, if I recall correctly, but didn't have access to Hammies either. Are you using CFs with her task force, mostly? Or doing speed change shenanigans? I think what really kills her for me is not being able to use another token, so it does make sense that a Command 1 ship is where its at for her.

My experience is limited so far to watching her across the table, but with speed one ships she really plays up their strengths, and allows you to sort of get a bunch of different admiral effects on her.

I really loved her interaction with Conc fire. Adding a Die plus a reroll makes it a much nicer command, especially on your more reactive ships. Also good for salvation. My opponent was running TFA with ex rax, and using leia navs for position and then leia conc fire for the rax shot plus OE made for some really vicious hits from ships under 50 points. He made some mistakes as far as splitting his force and not covering his ships from my sloane TIEs, so he got wiped, but I felt like I saw real potential in that ship. He was also running an STM pelta with TFA to increase their survivability. I think she could be strong also in a fleet using mutilple corvettes and flotes to push squadrons. An exp hanger leia transport is 23 points to push 4 squads. (26 if you want FC) Sure you can do things with token generation to mimic those effects, but in practice I think Leia buys you an extra turn or two at peak efficiency.

I still want to try FController/ Exp Hanger / Leia / HH pocket carriers. Under 50 points for an ostensibly squad three FC platform. A solid ~30 point discount off afmk2 in that role.

I ran Leia with 4 TF:A Hammerheads and an Entrapment Formation Pelta carrier and 5 generic A-Wings as interceptors in a few friendly games and it was deadly deadly deadly. Some hijinks on the pelta (hondo, vet captain) let me lock in Leia squadron every turn to activate all of the A's (Expanded hanger, plus Leia token) and still generate the token for entrapment. Entrapment every turn except 6 (token first turn for turn 2, then vet captain, then hondo, then discard) countered a LOT of the single command struggles I faced with Leia which mostly revolved around those crucial 2-3 turns where I needed both a CF dice and a nav token to change speeds and let me lock in CF with the hammerheads with abandon.

The damage output of the hammerheads is much higher than anticipated, I was really really impressed. Problem is, they are also going to die. It was tough to keep them alive, even with Task Force Antilles. I felt like I was on to something with the Entrapment Pelta and Leia though, that worked like a charm because really lets be honest most times you need to use a token it's nav.

Some quick observations (off the top of my head) from our 10-player Store Championship this past Saturday:

• No one played Rhymer
• No one played Rieekan (not 100% sure)
• Lots of Quasars, of both types, and they seemed well balanced. Some flew in at full speed, others floated around the boarder and commanded squads via Relay. 2 players had Stronghold, 1 had Squall.
• I didn't see any Quad Battery Turrets.
• No Interdictors
• No Konstantine
• Two players (maybe just 1?) had Cracken.
• 2 players had Hammerheads. One had 2, the other 4.
• At least a few players had a token squad force of <50 points. The top 3 still had almost a full squad load.
• One Sloane player, and he won with a loaded ISD, 4 Gonzantis and a full squad load
• We played that TFA could move multiple damage from one attack, due to a unanimous vote stemming from the article describing it's usage as such, and no one played more than 4 Hammerheads. No one said TFA was OP like this, but we didn't see a 8 hammerhead TFA list.
• Someone 1-shot an untouched Ackbar Assault Frigate with a ISD 1 Avenger + Boarding Troopers attack.
• I chickened out at the last minute and changed from a Sloane Phantom list to a Flight Controllers Defenders JerJerrod Objective-based list with a high bid. Everyone picked my weak/bad (Red) objective that I knew wasn't synergistic with my list but I didn't have time to fix it before we started. I finished middle of the pack.

Am'I the only one that see the potential of Lea as a great squadron activation bonus? A ship whit Expended Hangar Bay and her bring 2 more squadrons activate on the field per turn. This is not bad even for ship that do not abitually give squadron order.

33 minutes ago, DOMSWAT911 said:

Am'I the only one that see the potential of Lea as a great squadron activation bonus? A ship whit Expended Hangar Bay and her bring 2 more squadrons activate on the field per turn. This is not bad even for ship that do not abitually give squadron order.

I do as well. Consider that you would normally take two EHB flotillas for a reliable 3/activation for 6/turn total. Now, just run the barebones flotillas for the same quality and you get 10 points back on investing in Leia.

Now keep EHB and go up to 4/activation and 8/turn to push all your Rebel aces.

She he also makes me want to try a few other ships as squad pushers. Like taking flight controllers on a star Cruiser with the Liberty title.

36 minutes ago, DOMSWAT911 said:

Am'I the only one that see the potential of Lea as a great squadron activation bonus? A ship whit Expended Hangar Bay and her bring 2 more squadrons activate on the field per turn. This is not bad even for ship that do not abitually give squadron order.

Or take Dodonna and another flotilla on top of whatever flots you are taking. Push the same amount of squads.

Re: Leia

Honestly, I'm not terribly distraught over her as an admiral. I remain rather happy with crew Leia. I like putting her on Jaina's Light to support command flexibility, using Jaina's Light title to let the CR90A remain useful while staying at long range. Combos well into Mon Mothma fleets.